.NET Rocks!

Mark Miller

Mark Miller is a seven-year C# Microsoft MVP, and a leading expert on user interface design. He's the Chief Architect of the IDE Tools division at Developer Express, and he streams live C# coding & design on Twitch.tv/CodeRushed. Mark has been creating tools for software developers for over four decades.

Andrew Brust

Blue Badge Insights CEO Andrew Brust has worked with Microsoft technologies for two decades; been an influencer in the Microsoft tech community for 20 years; and has worked closely with both Microsoft's Redmond-based corporate team and its field organization for over 15.

Andrew is a Microsoft Regional Director and a Microsoft MVP. He is the co-author of "Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2012" (Microsoft Press, 2012). Andrew founded the Microsoft Business Intelligence and Big Data User Group of New York City in 2010, and co-founded the NYC .NET Developer Group in 2001. In addition, he is on the Advisory Board of The New York Tech Council.

Andrew is a frequent speaker at developer industry events, and is the co-chair of the Visual Studio Live! family of conferences. Andrew is the 'Big on Data' blogger for ZDNet. In the publications world, Andrew's been a contributing editor to Visual Studio Magazine for almost 20 years and is also a columnist for that magazine.

Colin Melia

Colin Melia is a Microsoft Regional Director and Microsoft MVP for Silverlight known as an architect, trainer, speaker and author with deep and broad knowledge of the latest Microsoft technologies, proven problem solving skills, hands-on solution creation ingenuity and the ability to communicate rich and complex ideas.

He speaks regularly with his British accent at conferences, events and code camps for Microsoft and community organisations as well as being a college academic advisor.

In the summer of 2010 he developed and delivered the first Windows Phone 7 boot camp tour in North America, training dozens of developers and companies across Canada at Microsoft offices.

His recent articles and reference cards have been featured on Mobile Developer Magazine & DZone and he regularly posts on his blog.

Colin has 17 years of hands-on experience in areas of rich UI with WPF/Silverlight, cloud development with Azure and BI with SQL Server, along with in-depth knowledge of core technologies such as .NET, OData, WCF, WF, LINQ and WIF. He has developed award-winning simulation technology with rich UI, cloud-based learning portals and workflow-driven BI systems. He also created the first streaming video community site with Windows Media.

He has worked in the finance, telecoms, e-learning, Internet communications and gaming industries, with his business solutions recently in use at major league companies world-wide.

Billy Hollis

Billy Hollis is a software designer and developer with a contrarian streak that often challenges conventional wisdom in the industry. He has a consulting practice in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. He and his team focus on user experience design (UX), advanced user interface development, rules-based architectures, and healthcare systems. He teaches classes for design thinking and UX design, and technical classes on XAML for WinUI and XAML for WPF.

Stephen Forte

Stephen Forte a managing partner at Fresco Capital and the co-founder and accelerator director of the Laudato Si’ Challenge, inspired by Pope Francis. Prior he was the Chief Strategy Officer of Telerik, a leading vendor of developer and team productivity tools (acquired by Progress Software.) Stephen was the founder of Mach5, a Silicon Valley-based startup accelerator and co-founder of AcceleratorHK, Hong Kong’s first startup accelerator. Stephen has an MBA from the City University of New York and did post-grad work at the London School of Economics. An avid mountain climber, Stephen leads a trek in the Mt. Everest region every fall to raise money for charity. After several years as an ex-pat in Hong Kong, Stephen now lives in Silicon Valley with his wife and daughter. @worksonmypc