The 2018 IBM Champions

After reviewing more than 1400 nominations, IBM is proud and happy to announce the 2018 class of IBM Champions. The IBM Champions program recognizes innovative thought leaders in the technical community and rewards these contributors by amplifying their voice and increasing their sphere of influence.

An IBM Champion is an IT professional, business leader, developer, and educator who influences and mentors others to help them innovate and transform digitally with IBM software, solutions, and services. From the nominations, 650 IBM Champions were selected.... Among those are:

• 62% renewing; 38% new Champions
• 38 countries represented
• 6 business areas, including Analytics (34%), Cloud (25%), Collaboration & Talent Solutions (24%), Power Systems (9%), Storage (1%), IBM Z (7%)

These individuals evangelize IBM solutions, share their knowledge, and help grow the community of professionals who are focused on IBM offerings. IBM Champions spend a considerable amount of their own time, energy, and resources on community efforts—organizing and leading user group events, answering questions in forums, contributing articles and applications, publishing podcasts, sharing instructional videos, and more.

As a reward, IBM Champions receive IBM Champion-branded merchandise, IBM Champion open badges, and invitations and discounts to IBM conferences. They are highlighted online and recognized at live events. In addition, they may be offered various speaking opportunities that enable them to raise their visibility and broaden their sphere of influence. They are recognized for the work they have done over the past year and supported and enabled with education and opportunities to do even more advocacy in the next year.