Meet with an OSS project: LangChain4j

Hi, I'm Zineb Bendhiba, a Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat. I work on the Apache Camel project, making open-source integration smoother. I love using Java and Quarkus to build cool things. Open source is my jam—it's all about innovating and contributing to something bigger.

Lize Raes is Product Manager and Developer Advocate at Naboo.ai, where she helps to build the developer productivity toolbox of the future. Known as the public face of the LangChain4j framework, she loves inspiring developers to apply the potential of AI in real-world applications. Committed to applying technology to societal challenges, Lize has embraced roles such as cochlear implant researcher at Ghent University, bioinformatics engineer for drug development software, and advisor to the Belgian government, where her COVID-19 prognosis model was used to steer drug and hospital supplies during the pandemic. In her free time, you will find her behind the piano or in her woodworking atelier.

Baruch Sadogursky (@jbaruch) did Java before it had generics, DevOps before there was Docker, and DevRel before it had a name. He started DevRel at JFrog when it was ten people and took it all the way to a successful $6B IPO by helping engineers solve problems. Now Baruch keeps helping engineers solve problems but also helps companies help engineers solve problems. He is a co-author of the "Liquid Software" and "DevOps Tools for Java Developers" books, Java Champion and CNCF Ambassador alumni, serves on multiple conference program committees, and regularly speaks at numerous most prestigious industry conferences, including Kubecon, JavaOne (RIP), Devoxx, QCon, DevRelCon, DevOpsDays (all over), DevOops (not a typo) and others.

Viktor Gamov is a Principal Developer Advocate at Confluent, founded by the original creators of Apache Kafka®. With a deep passion for distributed systems and cloud-native architectures, Viktor has built a reputation for helping architects, developers, and operators design scalable, low-latency, and highly available systems. His ability to bridge complex technical concepts with practical applications has made him a trusted resource in the tech community.

As a Java Champion and an accomplished speaker, Viktor has captivated audiences at world-renowned industry events such as JavaOne, Devoxx, Kafka Summit, and QCon. His expertise includes distributed systems, real-time data streaming, the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), and DevOps, making him a go-to authority on modern software development practices.

Viktor also co-authors Manning's Kafka in Action.
Beyond his professional achievements, Viktor’s enthusiasm for technology extends to sharing his insights on open source, developer advocacy, and interests in fitness and food. Follow him on X and BlueSky (@gamussa)

Clement Escoffier (@clementplop) is a distinguished engineer at Red Hat and co-lead of the Quarkus project. He is a Java Champion. Before joining Red Hat, Clement had several professional lives, from academic positions to management. He contributed to projects and products, touching many domains and technologies such as OSGi, mobile, continuous delivery, and DevOps. Clement has always been interested in software engineering, distributed systems, and event-driven architecture. He recently focused on Reactive Systems, Cloud-Native applications, and Kubernetes. Clement contributed to many open-source projects, such as Apache Felix, Eclipse Vert.x, SmallRye, Mutiny, and Quarkus. He also authored the "Reactive Systems in Java" book.

Guillaume Laforge est développeur advocate chez Google Cloud où il se focalise autour des sujets d'IA générative, de solutions serverless, d'architecture distribuée et d'automatisation des APIs. Guillaume est également Java Champion, un des membres fondateurs du podcast Les Cast Codeurs et est le co-fondateur du langage de programmation Apache Groovy.

Antonio Goncalves est un développeur senior qui a évolué dans l'écosystème Jakarta EE pendant un certain temps avant de passer à Spring, Micronaut et Quarkus. Des systèmes distribués aux microservices et au cloud, il aide aujourd'hui ses clients à développer des applications intelligentes.

Antonio a aussi écrit plusieurs livres (LangChain4j, Jakarta EE et Quarkus), intervient dans des conférences internationales (Devoxx, JavaOne, GeeCon...), rédige des articles techniques, donne des cours en ligne (PluralSight, Udemy) et co-présente le podcast technique français Les Cast Codeurs. Il a co-créé le Paris JUG, Voxxed Microservices et Devoxx France. Pour tout son travail au service de la communauté, il a été nommé Java Champion il y a quelques années.

Sandra Ahlgrimm est développeuse cloud senior à Microsoft spécialisée en Java. Elle s'intéresse particulièrement à la fluidité de l'expérience du développeur lors du déploiement de leur charge de travail Java sur Azure, avec des machines virtuelles, App Service, AKS, Azure Spring Apps, Azure Functions ou Azure Container Apps.

Sandra et son équipe, les Advocates Java, travaillent en étroite collaboration avec les équipes produit et les développeurs pour s’assurer que les services Azure sont testés et optimisés pour répondre aux besoins des développeurs. Ils sensibilisent et informent également la communauté sur les fonctionnalités de ces services.