Welcoming Progress Champions 2024

Welcoming folks as Progress Champions—a unified program to recognize and honor our friends in the developer community.

The Progress Champions program is a recognition for the best in our software industry—for developers, designers, testers, architects, advocates, partners and forward thinkers. We’re transforming our individual “MVP” offerings to a unified program structure. This will allow us to create a stronger, more impactful presence within the developer community. We’re starting off with Developer Tools and Sitefinity, with the ultimate goal to include the entire portfolio of Progress products. This will be an annual program with year-round nominations, evaluations in November/December and inductions/renewals in January.

Welcome Champions

Progress Software has a big portfolio of products—but modern developers often relate to Progress for a collection of frameworks and tools. This we collectively call Developer Tools—it includes Telerik UI suites for all things .NET, Kendo UI suites for all things JavaScript, reporting products, testing solutions, design utilities, network debugging with Fiddler and other developer productivity tools.

Developers learn from each other’s experiences, and it’s easy to share a love for tooling that makes developers more productive. Progress has always recognized and honored outstanding folks in the software community—influencers who lead with success, share knowledge and drive the developer community forward with empathy.

We’re glad to welcome this year’s group of Progress Champions in the Developer Tools space—you’re all awesome and we’re glad to have you as friends.

Here are the folks who were part of the older Telerik Ninja program—now renewed for 2024 as Progress Champions.

• Joseph Guadagno | US
• Dan Siegel | Honduras
• Layla Porter | UK
• Chris Sainty | UK
• Dhananjay Kumar | India
• Robert Boedigheimer | US
• Georgia Nelson | US
• Chris Gardner | US
• Chris DeMars | US
• Carey Payette | US
• Leomaris Reyes | Dominican Republic

We’re delighted to welcome aboard several new Progress Champions for the year—from all around the world.

• Jessica Engstrom | Sweden
• Sherman Chen | Singapore
• John Bristowe | Australia
• Daniel Hindrikes | Sweden
• Jefferson S. Motta | Brazil
• Jimmy Engstrom | Sweden
• Dany Paredes | Spain
• Eric Johansson | Sweden

And congratulations to the Progress Sitefinity Champions, named on the Progress.com blog.

Expectations

Progress Champions represent the very best in our community. Their commitment to excellence and collaboration is what moves us forward, and we are proud to be a part of their journey toward continued success.

Like with most honor programs, we recognize all that Progress Champions do and lead with empathy, but we also have a few expectations. As future prospects look to be Progress Champions, we want to be transparent as to what is expected annually—most Champions will easily go above and beyond.

1. Champions are expected to be professional, have an independent voice and be inclusive.
2. Champions share expertise through active participation and provide feedback.
3. Champions are expected to share knowledge about Progress products enthusiastically.
4. Champions are expected to influence online and offline.
5. Five wins sought in any combination through calendar year:
   • Speak at a UG/Meetup/Conference and demo/talk about Progress products.
   • Write an article and mention/use Progress products.
   • Talk about Progress products on podcasts/talk shows.
   • Use Progress products in own livestream or Join our DevRel team on livestreams.
   • Answer five questions on Progress products on any developer forums.
   • Create videos or join us for a thought-leadership webinar.
   • Demonstrate advocacy for Progress products internally/with clients.
   • Provide a review on Trust Radius/G2 Crowd/TrustPilot/Gartner Peer Insights.
   • Anything else innovative that helps.

Rewards

Progress Champions are awesome, deserving of our unending love and adoration—and a few tangible benefits. We celebrate our Progress Champions with a range of exclusive perks and value our continued collaboration.

1. Digital Progress Champions badge for web/signature use
2. Corresponding physical die-cut stickers
3. Custom designed gift with corresponding badge
4. Perpetual Trophy | Plaques each year
5. Access to PMs/Engineering through Slack channel
6. Early insight into Progress product strategy and roadmaps
7. Opportunities for Beta product testing and feedback
8. Invitation to Progress Appreciation Summit
9. Invitation to submit to speak at Progress events
10. Social media promotion | Profile on Progress Champions website
11. Community Twitch streams showcasing Progress Champions
12. Telerik, Kendo UI or Test Studio Annual Licenses with Lite Support
13. Fiddler Everywhere Annual Subscription

Come Join

The Progress Champions program showcases excellence in the developer community and the passion to educate others to be more successful. If you work with Progress technologies, we appreciate the partnership. If you are passionate about Telerik UI suites for all things .NET, Kendo UI suites for all things JavaScript, Reporting suites, Testing solutions, Design utilities, Network Debugging with Fiddler or other developer productivity tools from Progress Software, we want to know. Know someone else who would be great fit to be a Progress Champion—we’re all ears. Nominations are open year-round. Evaluations will be in November/December 2024 for the next calendar year—we want to see your names.

Want to know more about the program? Drop us a line at champions@progress.com.

Upwards and onwards with Progress Champions—cheers.