Congratulations to the 2016 Duke’s Choice Award Winners

The Duke’s Choice Award is dedicated to all members of the Java community! The award celebrates innovations that use Java technology. The primary judging criterion for this prestigious award is innovation—putting small developer shops and individual developers on equal footing with global giants.

Accessibility Award

ViaVox Guide
Fabricio Giordani, Cofounder
ViaVox is an audio guide application that assists the visually impaired to gain independence by being able to navigate inside buildings.

App Award

Hijj Application by IBM
Ahmad Gohar, Architect
Hijj app is used by the Egyptian Ministry of Interior to facilitate all Hijj (pilgrimage to Mecca) activities including registration, fees payment, applicant winner selections, and the integration with Saudi Arabia’s global management system, as well as airline and hotel booking systems.

Community Award

vJUG
Simon Maple, Founder
Virtual JUG (vJUG) has galvanized thousands of online members, offering online sessions and forums that have significantly energized the Java community.

Educational Outreach Award

Guatemala JUG “The Duke’s Adventures” Project
Victor Leonel Orozco Lopez, Leader
The Duke’s Adventures project is a series of conferences, talks, and hands-on labs, aimed to increase literacy and IT job attainment in Guatemala, one of the least-educated countries in Latin America (with only 0.29 percent of the population attaining a college degree).

Enterprise Java Award

PrimeFaces by Primetek Informatics
Cagatay Civici, Project Leader and Founder
PrimeFaces is the premier JSF plugin. The entire PrimeFaces community is being recognized for the amazing work they contribute to the Java ecosystem.

Financial Services Award

Strata from Open Gamma
Stephen Colebourne, Engineering Lead
Making best use of the new features in Java SE 8, Strata brings open source transparency to the world of finance, calculating risk analytics and valuations for standardised derivatives such as swaps.

Open Source Award

Orbit from BioWare (Electronic Arts)
Joe Hegarty, Lead Developer
Open source framework to write distributed systems using virtual actors on the JVM. Orbit makes it easier to build and maintain secure and scalable online services. Originally developed as back end for popular video games such as Dragon Age Inquisition.

Technology Award

jpro Technology
Matthias Hänel, Board Member and Partner
Hans-Henry Sandbaek, CEO
Florian Kirmaier, CTO
The new jpro technology is the future for rich web applications like UltraMixer DJ Software that use a wide range of technologies to mix audio, video, visuals, and live camera. Integral to future success is jpro technology, which brings Java back into the browser without Java plugin. The client-side rendering is highly optimized with browser-side approximations to deliver a smooth user experience, free of lags.

Tool Award

HeapStats by NTT in Japan
Kubota Yuji, Senior Expert
HeapStats is a lightweight Java troubleshooting analysis tool that uses JVMTI and SIMD instructions in x86 and ARM for optimization.