NLUUG Award

I won an award! Earlier this year I was lured to the NLUUG spring conference, and after my presentation (on machine learning from scratch), the two large presentation rooms were joined for some additional announcements. Turns out this was to give me an NLUUG Lifetime Achievement Award!

Previous awardees include Piet Beertema, Guido van Rossum, Wietse Venema, Bram Moolenaar, Andy Tanenbaum, Wytze van der Raay, Teus Hagen, Michiel Leenaars, Olaf Kolkman and these are all awesome people who made massive contributions to the world and the Internet.

Now, I have a useful low-grade case of imposter syndrome, where I always wonder if what I do is in any way special or good enough. I’m pretty happy with my syndrome because it does keep one grounded. But still, have I done enough to win such an award?

The NLUUG sure thinks so, and they were kind enough to write it up. And reading all that is enough to make you blush. Apparently PowerDNS and my hobby of explaining things, and arguing for open systems and privacy are worth it.

So after pondering it a bit, I’ve decided to embrace the NLUUG Award, and am very proud to have received it!

Finally it may be good to know that this award is not only useful to make me feel good. I’ve already noticed that governments and institutions show some respect - they may not know exactly what a UNIX is, but they do recognize that this Bert guy apparently is an officially approved nerd from the internet, and give me a little more credit. I hope this benefits my work for a free and open internet.

So thank you NLUUG, please keep up the great work, and know that I will forever be grateful!