Richard Campbell
Host of .NET Rocks and RunAs Radio
Richard Campbell wrote his first line of code in 1977. His career has spanned the computing industry both on the hardware and software sides, development and operations. He was a co-founder of Strangeloop Networks, acquired by Radware in 2013 and was on the board of directors of Telerik which was acquired by Progress Software in 2014. Today he is a consultant and advisor to a number of successful technology firms and is the founder and chairman of Humanitarian Toolbox (www.htbox.org), a public charity that builds open source software for disaster relief. Richard is also the host of two podcasts: .NET Rocks! (www.dotnetrocks.com) for .NET developers and RunAs Radio (www.runasradio.com) for IT Professionals.
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Awards
Humanitarian Toolbox Codeathon
Want to be a part of an open-source software project that can save lives?
Humanitarian Toolbox is hosting a codeathon for a project called TwoWeeksReady.
The goal of TwoWeeksReady is to utilize smartphones and cloud technology to help your family get prepared for disaster by organizing the information your family will need when disaster strikes.
The first steps are preparedness, that is, having lists of what you'll need for your family to survive. The smartphone application will maintain lists of what you need and what you have, manage the expiration dates of consumables, and in general, make it easier for you to put together survival kits for you and your family.
Beyond the preparedness kits, there's also crucial information your family will need - where to meet after a disaster, contact information, and other essential data that can be entered into one family phone and synchronized between them all.
During a natural disaster, infrastructure like wireless data can be unreliable. A key feature of TwoWeeksReady is to have all the information you need already loaded on your family's smartphones before the disaster. That way, everyone in your family has what they need without having to connect to the internet after a natural disaster.
The smartphone application is a Progressive Web App built using Vue 2, and the backend is primarily Azure Functions. Auth0 does application authentication.
Would you like to help? There's lots of code needed and even more tests! Close collaboration with disaster response and preparedness professionals built extensive documentation on features - you can check out the project's wiki at https://github.com/htbox/twoweeksready.
.NET and Microsoft's Pivot to the Cloud
Today, Microsoft is all-in on the cloud. But how did it happen? Join Richard Campbell as he takes you through the history of .NET and the moment when Microsoft became a cloud company. From 2010 to 2015, Microsoft underwent a radical change in focus. Sure, Azure started before then, but that doesn't mean Microsoft was ready to bet the company on it. But eventually they did - and the story is amazing!
Space Flight in the 2020s
Are the 2020s the decade where regular people get to go into space? Join Richard Campbell as he assembles all the current developments in space flight to look at what the next few years could offer to a regular person on a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Will there be space hotel in orbit around the Earth? What about a resort on the Moon? Could we go further than that? And, most importantly… how much will it cost? The potential is huge, and the impact on mankind is hard to even imagine - maybe science fiction is coming true?
The Next Decade of IT
It's 2020 - a new decade! How will technology evolve in the 2020s? Join Richard Campbell as he explores different aspects of hardware, software and networking that will have a huge impact over the next ten years. What will take over for the smartphone? Will Artificial Intelligence take over everything? What will PCs even look like over the next ten years? And what about Quantum Computing? All these topics and more will shape our future!
When Open Source Came to Microsoft
Today Microsoft seems to have open source running through its veins - but it wasn't always that way! So what changed? Join Richard Campbell as he takes you on a ride through the various moments in Microsoft history that led to its current focus on open source. The path to open source was not a straight line, but the twists and turns are what makes the story great!
The Next Decade of Software Development
It's 2021 - and besides a pandemic, we're in a new decade! How will software development evolve in the 2020s? Join Richard Campbell as he explores the landscape of technology that will have a huge impact on development over the next ten years. What new devices are coming? Will Artificial Intelligence take over everything? How will people connect to the web in the next ten years? And what about Quantum Computing? All these topics and more will shape our future!
The Moon: Gateway to the Solar System
In 1972, the last human to walk on the Moon headed back to Earth. Is it time to go back? Join Richard Campbell as he explores the potential of a return of humans to the Moon. Much has been learned about the Moon since the Apollo missions, and interest in the Moon as a place of science, exploration and learning is growing. The Moon can be a catalyst to humankind traveling the solar system - it's time to go back!
How We Got Here - The History of Web Development
The Internet existed before the Web, but the Web redefined the Internet - what started out as a protocol for helping scientists share documents and references has turned into one of the most important forces in the 21st century. But how did we get here?
Join Richard Campbell as he tells the story of the World Wide Web and the web development tools and techniques that made it all possible. From the early versions of HTML where you laid out web pages with tables (GeoCities anyone?) and simple scripting languages to CSS, JavaScript and HTML 5, leading to Single Page Applications, Progressive Web Apps and Web Assembly! We've come a long way, and the story is continuing!
Building Trust in Teams
Today businesses run on software, and the quality of that software is directly affected by the level of trust the team members responsible for that software have with each other - from management to developers to operations folks to data administrators - everyone has a hand in the success of software, but without trust, that success is hampered. What can you do to improve the levels of trust in your team? Join Richard Campbell as he discusses his experiences building trust within teams with time, effort, honesty and pizza.
The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence has been looming on the digital horizon for years, but recent rapid advancements have put AI in the world spotlight. What happens next? Richard Campbell discusses the history of AI and how it has evolved, as well as the opportunities and concerns that everyone should have as this technology enters our lives. The promise of artificial intelligence is a world that allows humankind to further tap their own potential with lives of greater convenience, safety and opportunity. But that same technology can be used to limit, obfuscate and control. How do we as a society manage this rapidly evolving power to make a better world?
The History of .NET
.NET continues to evolve - but how did it get here? Join Richard Campbell on a tour of the history of .NET, Visual Studio and the related tools that have been helping developers produce millions of applications. So many forces shape how development tools are created, and Richard ties together the story of the hardware, software, market and political forces that have brought .NET to be an open-source, cross-platform development platform. The winding path of .NET has been influenced by many things along the way, and the future looks bright!
The Coming Disruptions in Development (and what it means to you)
While software development has always been evolving, there are inflection points that represent radical change in how and what software gets built. What is the next disruption in development? Richard Campbell digs through the thousands of interviews he’s done on .NET Rocks and RunAs Radio to explore the upcoming changes in development – what will replace the smartphone? What is the real impact of machine learning on software? What about quantum computing? We might look back on these days in development and remember when things were so calm!
The Future of Energy
Electricity isn't optional - the modern world runs on it. And the demand for electricity increases every day. But our methods for extracting energy and producing electricity does damage to the Earth. How do we fix this? Join Richard Campbell as he explores the evolution of energy production and consumption and the path to a future of sustainable energy - it isn't easy, but it is possible!