After 2 years of being a Microsoft MVP on Developer Technologies I have the opportunity to add a new milestone to my #DreamingIsBelieving and Microsoft Community story. I am nominated to become a .NET Foundation Board Member.

But the Question is

What do I have to put on the table? Which value can I add? Being an MVP and a .NET Foundation board member  is not about feeling honored and is not a gift just to pleasure the person (Although I am pleasured and feel honored).

It’s all about what can I bring to the community? Which value can I add? Which contributions can I bring to the community, and why am I the right person to do this?

Well, I want to focus even more on accessibility. I want to discuss and research which functions, methods, classes, packages .NET can help developers to make more accessible apps.

“The easier it is to make an accessible app, the more developers will to this”.

In addition to this I want to advocate for people with autism in Tech and mental health in tech.

And why me? Maybe  because I am a person with Autism, and work over 8 years as a developer to increase Quality of Life of people with a cognitive disability.

So my plans are set,

… #DreamingIsBelieving to be continued

---

I made the following document as an MD File

Why I’m Running

#DreamingIsBelieving continues… With this awesome nomination…

I am Dennie Declercq and a strong ally for inclusion and tech for people with disabilities. Have you ever considered that 1B people in the world have a disability? A disability that is visible or invisible. I am an advocate and strong ally for people with disabilities. I believe in digital inclusion in the broadest sense.

If something doesn’t go right, go left! Think outside the box!

I have a background as a person with autism. I did it my way (the #DreamingIsBelieving way). At this time I am president of my own nonprofit DDSoft in Belgium, 2 years Microsoft MVP Developer Technologies and volunteer in a coaching center for people with a cognitive disability (Ithaka), and spoke at a lot of conferences from Sydney to Orlando.

… How far can the dream go?

My .NET Contributions

My biggest focus is telling the people at conferences about people with disabilities in the broadest sense. Talks as: “The Power of Inclusion”, “Autism in Tech”, “Making Accessible Apps in Xamarin” are just some of my success stories. I also work, engineer pure voluntary on accessible Xamarin Apps and just started to explore what AI can do for the better (life of people with disabilities). So to conclude, thought leadership, vision work and tech research for the people that need it most.

Links

https://www.ddsoft.be/?page_id=31&lang=en https://accessibledreams.home.blog/ My story on Microsoft Humans of IT https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/humans-of-it-blog/guest-blog-my-story-of-living-with-autism-spectrum-disorder-in/ba-p/1369716

Contact Information

Twitter @DennieDeclercq FB: https://www.facebook.com/dennie.declercq LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennie-declercq-822086a2/

Go to .NET Foundation to vote

On Me 🙂

On Thursday 1^st of August at 6 PM I was shivering. I got a beautiful mail that I became an MVP Developer Technologies.

A Microsoft MVP or Most Valuable Professional is an award for your work in the community. Community work is by example: running a user group, speaking at conferences, contributing to OSS and a few more.

Most of the MVP’s have besides their MVP status work as a paid job. For me being an MVP without a paid job is a real honor for me. I know that I am with the little few. I promise to take my responsibility for the community.

And want to thank you all. All of you attended sessions from me at conferences or Meetups. Organizers of conferences and meetups who gave me the chance to speak to their audience. Without the opportunity to talk at a lot of conferences and meetups last year I wouldn’t be an MVP. 

I plan to speak a lot more conferences in the next year (I mean from September until July). I hope to surprise you with new topics within my expertise. I believe I can make a difference in Accessibility and Diversity and Inclusion. But not only in these fields.

So I plan also a series of technical talks where I do discuss technologies that I use to make our (DDSoft) ‘s accessible software. I want to reach people that aren’t in the scope of accessibility but that will benefit from my product/technology knowledge.

And I have a little surprise: in one of the coming blog posts, I do an announcement…