Enthusiastic, focused, and passionate. Those are a few of the words that come to mind when I think of people in the growing Alexa community who help us invent and build the future of voice technology and ambient computing.
In 2016, we launched the Alexa Champion program to honor some of these voice leaders and it has grown to 60 champions around the world. They are a diverse group of engineers, designers, and conversational UI/UX experts recognized by Amazon for excellence in their achievements and contributions to the global Alexa community.
Their knowledge and passion for Alexa continues to educate others. In fact, in just the last year, Alexa Champions generated over 1.3 million engagements a month from their 143 unique skills. And they’ve engaged with 713,000 Twitter followers and 78,000 followers on LinkedIn. And their appearances on my weekly Twitch.tv/YouTube stream called “Alexa & Friends” have provided tons of learning opportunities for all of us.
As the Chief Technology Evangelist for Alexa, their work inspires me. That’s why I’m so excited to announce ten new Alexa Champions for 2021.
Alexander Martin: A frontend architect for Europe's largest hosting provider, Alexander Martin has been developing Alexa skills since 2017. His TV program skill has been the #1 skill in the German Alexa Skill Store for several years now. He created APL Ninja, a social platform for APL, where developers can discover new things every day.
Ashish Jha: Ashish Jha's journey in voice began in November 2017 when Alexa first launched in India. Since then, he has been immersed in the voice-first ecosystem, building more than 500 Alexa skills across a variety of domains for businesses ranging from SMBs to the top Fortune 500 brands.
Dyung Ngo: Voice developer, co-founder of Melbourne-based CogniVocal, and founder of the Melbourne Amazon Alexa Meetup, Dyung Ngo is passionate about the potential of technology to enhance people's lives and loves exploring the vast possibilities of voice.
Joao Paulo Alqueres: Joao Paulo Alqueres is a full stack conversation designer, voicer developer, and founder of the voice agency Iara Digital. Besides being an entrepreneur and a Certified Alexa Skill Builder, Joao co-hosts a podcast that involves interviewing pioneers of the internet and voice.
Jody Burnett: Described as a creative whirlwind in the world of voice, Jody Burnett leveraged his 30 years of tech experience to found VoiceSkills Inc. He has led teams creating Alexa skills for major brands such as Amazon, Microsoft and PMI, as well as helping create thousands of Alexa skills for clients around the globe.
Katherine Prescott: Voice evangelist Katherine Prescott is founder and editor of VoiceBrew, a daily email newsletter dedicated to helping people get more out of Alexa and other voice assistants. Katherine previously spent eight years in leadership roles at a global alternative investment firm.
Maaike Coppens: An award-winning Voice UX designer and strategist, keynote speaker, and co-author of a Voice UX Workbook, Maaike Coppens provides Voice UX consulting to start-ups, agencies, and enterprises. Currently CDO at GreenShoot Labs, Maaike keeps the conversation going as she works on their conversation design tool, OpenDialog. Passionate about sharing, she is a co-host for the VoiceLunch BookClub and the Open Dialogues podcast.
Steve Tingiris: An active member of the Alexa developer community since 2015, Steve Tingiris is founder and managing director of Dabble Lab, a technology education and services company that helps businesses accelerate learning and adoption of natural language processing, conversational AI, and other emerging technologies.
Suneet Patil: An early adopter of voice technology in India, Suneet Patil is an Alexa evangelist obsessed with building the Alexa community across India and the world. An AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder, Suneet is co-organizer of Alexa Community Bengaluru and Alexa Community India.
Xavier Portilla Edo: Xavier Portilla Edo began his career in voice technology in October 2019 by developing four Alexa skills: Pokemundo, Soccer Results, Basketball Results, and APM. Passionate about the power of voice, he wrote the first book on Alexa development to be available in Spanish, titled "The Alexa Revolution."
We look forward to welcoming this new cohort to Alexa Live, our annual developer education event where they’ll join other Alexa experts to share their experiences with the latest Alexa innovations. And check out this page for more information about the Alexa Champions program and for full bios on all of our Alexa Champions.