What Are Java Champions and How Can You Join the Elite Java Community?

Although many programming languages claim better performance than Java, they lack the community that Java has. The Java User Group (JUG) is a well‑known organization, and another elite group is the Java Champions.

Java Champions

Java Champions, literally “Java Champions”, was launched by Sun at the 2005 JavaOne conference to honor key influencers in the Java community. Being a Java Champion is considered the highest honor, and its members are elite figures in the Java ecosystem.

Member Composition

Members include influential presenters, Java educators, authors, consultants, platform event organizers, and others who have made special contributions to the Java ecosystem. They are distinguished engineers, architects, or community builders who invest time in creating lasting relationships beyond code.

Community Activities

Java Champions contribute to community building by participating in Java projects, interacting with Java User Groups, speaking at conferences, creating content, teaching other developers, and providing independent, constructive feedback to Oracle to help advance Java.

How to Become a Champion

To become a Java Champion you must achieve outstanding accomplishments that catch the attention of the existing Champions, be nominated by a current member, and receive unanimous approval from a voting panel.

There are no formal ranks; members are grouped by the year they joined, except for the honorary member James Gosling, the “father of Java”.

Current Membership

As of the article, there are about 350 Java Champions worldwide. The list can be viewed at the official Oracle site.

https://apexapps.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=119297:3

In China, only three members are known: Mo Li, San Hong Li (Alibaba JVM chief architect), and Xu Bin (a professor at Tsinghua University).

Java Champions also maintain a GitHub repository with member information.

https://github.com/aalmiray/java-champions