Interview with a Microsoft MVP and Azure Development Ninja – Chervine

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It's time for another interview with an Azure Development Ninja! Today's interview is with...

Chervine Chervine's avatar

Some of Chervine's profile stats:

  • 23 TechNet Wiki articles!
  • 718 Wiki Edits
  • 479 Wiki Comments
  • 1.279 downloads on his 5 Gallery Items

Chervine has been contributing high quality contributions to the Microsoft community for years! And so let's get going with the interview...

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Who are you, where are you, and what do you do? What are your specialty technologies?

I am a Solution Architect and Microsoft MVP based in Mauritius. My role is to lead the Digital Transformation journey for customers throughout the organization. This involves working with the customers to find solutions to the problems they are facing and architect digital solutions. I lead the projects technically from conception to production at all the stages.

My job also allows me to be a strong advocate of new technologies which can be used to craft innovative solutions for the customers inside the group after appropriate R&D and POC is done.

My technical experience includes .NET application development for Web, Mobile & Desktop, data warehousing & BI. I have now a strong interest in developing intelligent applications by using the Azure Analytics Tools such as Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services, Azure HDInsight, Bots & Power BI,  (just to name a few).

Moreover, I like to engage with the community both online and offline. chervine01

1 Finally meeting my friends from TN WIKI at the MVP Summit last year. It was awesome!

 

How do you contribute to the community?

I write on the Microsoft TechNet Wiki, C# Corner and the Azure Community Dev blog (obviously J ).  I am also very active in the developer community in Mauritius where I lead and speak in events offline such as the Global Azure Bootcamp, Developers Conference, Xamarin Dev Days and other Microsoft Bootcamps. This year I have been invited to speak at 2 conferences in India, this was my first international speaking experience and I loved it!

 

Why do you contribute to TechNet Wiki articles? What kind of articles have you written, and why?

I write about new technologies that I am doing R&D to be used by my customers. Once I understand and apply them, I write a wiki about it. I usually describe what I wanted to achieve, describe the steps to implement the technology and share some pain points which I faced along with some potential solutions, it’s a way to share knowledge and give back to the community.

Most of my articles involves Azure as I believe that Azure has a strong PaaS offering which helps us design and build innovative solutions fast! I stress a lot on the PaaS offerings as I really love it since I come from a developer background and don’t find myself doing patching/maintenance and focus on the dev/product side of technology.

chervine02

2 Speaking at conferences in India in April 2017

 

What was an Azure article or blog post that stood out for you?

I’ve recently received good feedbacks about the article The Data Science Process with Azure Machine Learning on the Azure Community Dev blog. The article has also been selected to be published to be in the MVP Friday Five blog in the near future. I also have several articles that was awarded medals and featured by the TechNet wiki blog. Thanks for the all the kudos.

What are your big projects right now?

I can’t talk about my projects at my workplace because of confidentiality agreements. Let’s talk about my personal development instead. Last year I completed the MPP program about data science and I loved it as it is very practical with real world problems and hands on labs. While I already had experience with some modules like SQL Server, Power BI and Machine Learning Basics, I really enjoyed the deep dive modules such as Model Tuning & Optimization. I am now aiming to do the Big Data one and I’m eagerly waiting for the program to be released.

I am also working towards an MCSA in SQL Server, I passed exam 70-761 last December and expect to complete exam 70-762 in the next 2 months.

chervine03

3Opening Keynote of the Global Azure Bootcamp 2016 in Mauritius

 

Do you have any tips for new community members?

Just start! I understand it may seem difficult and challenging to start writing as you may be thinking about the number of people reading it or you lack confidence. Well, all of us started somewhere and once wrote a “1st” article. But remember, when writing, you are writing to the world! Do not focus on writing “many” articles, but write quality ones.

Last month, someone asked me how much time I take to write an article, well, this may take up to one month with about 3 hours per week including writing the code, writing the article, designing the diagrams, reviewing and proof reading.

Here are some guidelines that you can use on the TechNet wiki:

  1. TechNet Wiki: Article Guidelines
  2. Wiki: User Experience Guidelines
  3. Wiki: Article List for Proofreading Grammar
  4. TechNet Wiki Article Title Guidelines

 

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Please join me in thanking Chervine for his community contributions!

 

And remember to keep your head in the Cloud!

- Ninja Ed