Announcing the Intel Black Belt Software Developers!

By Gunjan Rawal (Intel) (11 posts) on August 20, 2008 at 5:59 am

A few months ago, I was given the charter to understand how we could identify the most active members in our communities and make them feel more valued. I interviewed a number of our community members to understand why they contributed and what we could do to reward, recognize them. The result is a new title to recognize members for their technical expertise, sharing knowledge and for collaborating to make our communities stronger.  

‘Intel Black Belt Software Developer’ is the new title designed to recognize members for their time and effort to help make Intel Software Network a valuable developer resource. Why Black Belt? Because a Black Belt connotes mastery that comes from developing competency and gaining a deep understanding, which is what our members demonstrate. 

There are a number of benefits associated with this title and you can find these here, but more importantly I envision this title as means for us to thank members of our communities for their valuable contributions.

 

blackbelt_black_md

blackbelt_black_md

 

 

 

 

 

Igor Levicki and Jim Dempsey are our first two Black Belt Software Developers. Igor is based in Belgrade, Serbia and works on code optimization, image, video, and audio processing as well as threading and GPGPU programming. Most of you would recognize Igor from his active participation in the discussion forums.

 Jim has an experience spanning stints with reputed companies such as Digital Equipment Corp, EDUCOMP. Jim is a frequent contributor to the Parallel Programming Forum. Most recently Jim joined us at the Research@Intel event along with Aaron Tersteeg, community manager for Threading for Multi-Core community.

Congratulations to Jim and Igor :-). Stay tuned for more Black Belt recognitions over the next couple of months.

 

That said this title is only a starting point. I am excited to hear from you on this recognition, benefits and more. What do you think we can do better? What would you like to see as part of recognition?

 

Post a comment, or drop me a note at gunjan dot s dot rawal at intel dot com. I am excited to hear from you.

 

 

Categories: Events, Financial Services Industry, Gaming, Intel® Software Network 2.0, Manageability, Mobility, Open Source, Parallel Programming, Virtualization, Visual Computing

Comments (15)

August 20, 2008 8:46 AM PDT


Veikko Eeva		 Congratulations Igor and Jim!
August 20, 2008 8:47 AM PDT

Jeff Moriarty (Intel)
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Community Manager
 I'm glad to see Intel recognizing the external people who contribute to our communities, and Igor and Jim are both great candidates to kick off this program. Great job kicking this off, Gunjan!
August 20, 2008 9:01 AM PDT

David Stewart (Intel)
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 I got a chance to talk briefly last night with Igor. Very interesting work there in Serbia. Proves that there is still a strong role for people willing to roll up their sleeves and work hard to make software better for everyone. Good work, Igor!
August 20, 2008 10:14 AM PDT

Ajay Mungara (Intel)
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Community Manager
 Congratulations to Jim and Igor. Thanks Gunjan for making this recognition program a reality. I really hope that this program will help more of our external users to come forward and contribute to the good of the whole community.
August 21, 2008 3:03 PM PDT


Igor Levicki		 Thank you everyone! I will surely put the award I got to good use so expect more feedback from me -- we will keep improving the world together. Dave, thanks for those kind words, I enjoyed talking to you.
August 25, 2008 9:48 AM PDT

Maria Camila Gomez-Silva
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Brown Belt
 I am so glad to hear about this program! I also like the name a lot!
:)
August 26, 2008 8:50 AM PDT

Dmitriy Vyukov
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 Hello, Gunjan!

From BlackBelt FAQ:
"4)What are the criteria for selection of Black Belt Software Developers?
...
4.Submission of content/ white papers
5.Overall community participation"

How can one submit content/white papers to ISN?
And what meant by "Overall community participation"?

Thank you.
August 26, 2008 9:39 AM PDT

Gunjan Rawal (Intel)
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 Hi Dmitry, thanks for the comment. You can submit content to ISN here http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/articles/eng/3823.htm
Overall community participation is the quality of community participation by a member - the quality of support they provide, the quality of content etc. Look forward to your feedback on the program.
August 28, 2008 8:01 AM PDT

Dmitriy Vyukov
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 Re: You can submit content to ISN here http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/articles/eng/3823.htm
Ok. Thank you.

Re: Look forward to your feedback on the program.
I think that it's a great program. Something similar to MVP. Right? But Microsoft is usually associated with Windows. And Intel is OS-neutral, so to say. So, I think, that MVP is not very recognized in, for example, Linux world. And Black Belt will be.

But I see following problem with Black Belt. Currently there are two main ways to "participation in ISN community" - participation in discussion forums, and submission of articles.
But participation in discussion forums is a kind of lightweight. I.e. it suitable mainly to answer question of other people. I will not post some articles, thoughts, code examples to forums, because they will not be noted, and will be lost over time.
And submission of articles is a kind of too heavyweight. I.e. I have to prepare pictures, graphs, I have to made editorial revision. And it's too hard for non-native English speakers (like me). I think it's the main reason why currently there are very few articles on ISN submitted not by Intel-employees.
It will be great if ISN will provide something in-between. Like blogs. Such blogs can be separated from current ISN blogs (which are kept by Intel employees and distinguished people). Something like "ISN Private Blogs". And such blogs must be attached to ISN communities. Something like "ISN Private Multicore Blogs". In such blog I will be able to post some "small articles", some thoughts, some code examples etc.
August 28, 2008 8:28 PM PDT

Gunjan Rawal (Intel)
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 Hi again Dmitriy! I really appreciate your detailed feedback on our program. I do understand your comments on submission of content and am going to work with the development team to explore how we can include these requirements into the program going forward.
August 29, 2008 7:03 PM PDT

jimdempseyatthecove
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 Aaron and Gunjan,

I wish to thank you and everyone else in the selection process for this award. You caught me completely off guard - the award was an unexpected surprise. Thank you.

There are several other good contributors in your forums deserving of this award. Many give excellent advice, although maybe not to the extent that some of us others are able to contribute. In my case, I may have stood out in quantity of responses and I hope that some of my post met some measure of quality as well.

Dmitriy had a good point about a gap between light-weight contributions (like mine) and heavy-weight contributions such as articles where there may be a language gap causing a barrier to entry. Perhaps a middle ground can be found such as code submissions (but not your coding contests) can be used to judge their merit for consideration of award. TBB might be a good area for contributions.

Jim Dempsey
September 2, 2008 9:49 AM PDT

Aaron Brezenski (Intel)
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Black Belt
 Thanks, Gunjan. Like Jim, I was caught by surprise and appreciate the recognition (and the dinner).
July 23, 2009 6:00 AM PDT

bilali.sharjeel
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Registered User
 It's a good apportunity which is provided by INTEL.
The main benifit of this award is that peopel who are from different field can do something better in software field.
It also give encrgmnt to those peopel.
August 27, 2009 6:42 AM PDT

Ragavan R
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Registered User
 I an new to this site.I'm a student could you explain how to get a black belt
August 28, 2009 5:09 AM PDT

Gunjan Rawal (Intel)
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Community Manager
 Hi Ragavan - you can find more information on intel.com/software/blackbelt.

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