My story into tech is no secret. I was severely depressed and lonely, went to college where I discovered programming and a classmate taught me C# which changed my life! That is what led me to studying Software Engineering at Manchester Met University and never looking back!

Last year, on the 1st June 2018 in fact, I was awarded Microsoft MVP status for the first time. A few days after that, with a few days to process the news under my belt, I wrote this blog post discussing how I went from not really doing a lot in the community to MVP within 18 months.

Well I am proud to report I was renewed for 2019-20! In some ways, my array of contributions this year is a bit different to last, so I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you some of what I have been up to this last year and hopefully anyone wishing to become MVP too, can understand a bit of what it takes.

So yesterday I had the pleasure of not only speaking at NDC London but watching my good friend Jim Bennett talk immediately after me on Mobile Development in F# using Fabulous.

Last year you may recall I wrote this post about my experience at Hack Manchester 2017. My mentor and I worked together to create a mobile app aimed at helping women going through menopausal symptoms track their hot flushes and change in mood to help them, their support network and medical professionals spot patterns. You can read that post for more detail.

This year, Clare and I were back for Hack Manchester 2018. This post will discuss our experiences (Spoiler Alert! The result is in the title ;)).

I wanted to write this series a while ago but knew DevOps was in the works so now it is out, here we are! :)

This is an article I wrote on Medium recently so that my employer dunnhumby could share it to their own Medium publication to showcase posts by their employees. But this is my main blog so wanted to share it here for you as well.

In Spring 2018 I made the decision to go a bit Carpe Diem and submit a Call for Papers (CfP) on two of my favourite technologies, Xamarin and Cognitive Services, to ProgNet 2018 in London . This is a big .NET conference organised by Skill's Matter who's CTO is none other than the legendary Dylan Beattie. He is a well known face in the .NET speaking circuit, speaking regularly around the world and organising the London .NET User Group.