Google has recently announced the a new program to support their developers called the ‘Google Developers Expert‘ program.  It is an award program (similar conceptually to the Microsoft MVP program).  Here’s more detail from their developer site:

“Google Developers Expert is a yearly award recognizing top-contributing members of Google developer communities for their technical contribution and impact. Google Developers Experts speak in local and global events, have strong online presence and excellent technical background in their field. These independent developers bring their real-world experience and knowledge working with Google technologies to developer communities worldwide.”

Not coincidentally, I am writing this blog post from my treadmill work desk, which now sports a ChromeBox that I got as part of the swag haul from this year’s Google IO conference.

As some of my readers may know, I did some community education work around introducing developers to the Google App Engine offerings.  Also I am was a trusted tester for the (now released) BigQuery offering.  Additionally, I am currently a trusted tester for Google Compute Engine (shown first publicly at Google IO).

In addition, Llewellyn and I used GAE as part of the work we are doing to make the Teaching Kid Programming courseware libraries and utilities live in the open source space – we use a GAE as an endpoint for the TKP Virtual Proctor utility (and we have other plans to expand usage of GAE for TKP as well).

To that end, Google has given me the GDE award in their first round of ‘Google Developer Experts’ (awarded annually).

Click on my badge to see me and the other developers who got this award this year.

So, more to come on all things Google.