I just got back from the ODTUG Kscope18 conference in Orlando, Florida where, once again, the global APEX community descended. During the Sunday Symposium at this conference, I had the privilege of honoring Jürgen Schuster, who has been the catalyst and engine for so many positive things in this wonderful APEX community.
For the past few months, I was unsure of what words I could use to introduce this award to Jürgen, which accurately and humbly conveyed the breadth of his impact. But the words just came to me late one evening in early May, and I used them almost verbatim during the Sunday Symposium. I would like to share these words here, for everyone else in our global community to appreciate the impact he has had, along with the sacrifices he has personally made.
To quote Jürgen: live APEX and prosper.
ODTUG Kscope18 Conference
Sunday Symposium, June 10, 2018
The APEX Community is awesome, and it's awesome to be here and be a part of this conference. This is my 12th Kscope and I firmly believe that this is where the APEX community really got its start. Additionally, some of my greatest friends in the world are in this room, and I’m really grateful to be here.
There are really so many people who have made this community special: from the many plug-in developers, people who record training videos, members who write blog posts and books, create presentations with technical content and share them, manage and organize meetups, organize entire conferences or technical days or user group meetings or organize tracks at Kscope! There are those who create Web sites: builtwithapex.com, translate-apex.com, for example. There are open source sites dedicated to APEX and the Oracle Database. There are testing frameworks and security analysis tools. And the list goes on and on.
Many of these people who have worked so hard on all of these contributions are here in this room today. But among the many people who have given of their time and talent to the APEX community, there is one person who stands out. And I have two words to describe this person: passionate and selfless.
This person has spent a lot of time and a lot of their own personal money to carry the message of APEX across the globe. It's pretty extraordinary.
I'm sure everyone is going to know this person when I start citing some of their amazing work.
I’m sure you've seen these coveted APEX stickers before. It was the genius of this person to create a sticker for the APEX community. And instead of using some low-quality, cheap-looking, shoddy sticker, he opted for something classy, high-quality, enduring. At a personal cost of more than $1 per sticker, this person has supplied them and shipped them all over the globe to anyone who asks. At his own personal expense.
The next challenge? This person, with the help of others in this room, created apex.world - the APEX community site - being your one-stop portal for all things related to the APEX community - Slack channels, jobs, plug-ins, news, newsletters, awards, tweets, and more. There are more than 3,300 members today on apex.world. It’s the central starting point for the APEX community.
How many of you know how to create your own podcast and host it on iTunes? I don't. Neither did this person. Out of his own pocket, he paid a professional to educate him and show him everything you need to know to prepare and publish on iTunes. And since that time, he has recorded, edited and published 20 episodes of the Oracle APEX Talkshow.
The contributions go on - ODTUG APEX On Air Webinars, APEX Meetup organizer, he created a web site dedicated to APEX dynamics actions, and on. And almost all of these contributions has cost him his own money and he’s done it for no real personal gain.
Remember the two words I started with: passionate and selfless.
The person I’m proudly referring to is Jürgen Schuster, an energetic and passionate freelance consultant from Munich Germany. We wanted to recognize Jürgen and his many generous contributions to the community.
Please join me in congratulating Jürgen Schuster, as we proudly honor him with the first ever APEX Distinguished Community Member Award.
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