Happy New Year if it’s not too late. I like to keep celebrating the fresh opportunities of a year changing until we hit February. In each of my interactions this month I have been discussing the fact that 2025 looks like it will be better than the 2 years before. With economic improvements, further distance from lock-downs and being a year further down the preparation of whatever we’re doing it could be a big year – we just have to figure out how 😀.

However I have to admit that I am very lucky to feel in this position due to a few exciting things that happened over the turn of 2024 into 25…

OpenUK Honours List

I was blown away to be included in the OpenUK list of honours on at the turn of the year. They are celebrating open source contributions and community leadership from around the country. It is excellent to be noted for the hard work I put in, and to be in such company as the exceptional individuals who have been honoured this year and in previous too.

Congratulations to everyone and best of luck for your ongoing open source endeavours! You can see the full list at https://openuk.uk/honours/.

Ardan Labs Podcast

Late in 2024 I had a very enjoyable chat with Bill Kennedy from Ardan Labs which was recorded for their series interviewing people around the Go ecosystem. I have huge respect for the amazing community leadership and encouragement that Bill and his team provides, so it was fantastic to get the opportunity to talk about that and many other things in our conversation.

The podcast episode was released on January 1st and might be worth a listen if you’re interested in what it was like growing up in 80/90s and how my early experience with technology led me to Open Source and the world of Startups. Also you should check out their back catalogue, there have been so many excellent speakers recorded. You can listen in at https://ardanlabs.buzzsprout.com/1466944/episodes/16366029-fyne-startups-and-innovation-with-andy-williams.

Linux Format Magazine Interview

For the fourth time in my life I got that thrill of walking into a news-agents and picking up a magazine from the shelf to see an article that I’ve contributed (no, not all the same magazine at different shops!). But this time there was a difference – the editorial team at Linux Format had got in touch to ask if they could interview me about the Fyne project and the work we are doing for app development.

Of course I said yes! And so we jumped on a call and chatted for an hour or so. Hey presto and through the magic of editing it appeared in paper (and online) a little while later. It was a thrill to see what seemed like a simple conversation come to life in the pages of a magazine. Thanks so much to Neil and the team for an excellent outcome – I particularly loved the imagery (title photo attached to this blog post, with my new OpenUK medal over the top).

The issue was on the shelf over Christmas, but you can still purchase it online from https://linuxformat.com/linux-format-323.html.

What an amazing start to 2025. I hope that you too are filled with the possibilities of the year ahead 🎉