Andrea Provaglio

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Andrea Provaglio

Introduction

I'm an independent professional in the field of Information Technology, with almost twenty years of working experience in three different continents.

My mission is to help my clients develop better software and create better development teams; and to help the individuals improve technically and relationally.

I assist clients from many different domains, which can range from large organizations such as the European Commission in Brussels, or large multinational banks, to small and dynamic IT companies.

My work is primarily in these areas:

  • Adoption of Agile methodologies, such as Extreme Programming (XP) and Scrum
  • Development of soft skills for teams and organizations
  • Coaching and training on software development for the Java/J2EE platform
  • Software design, Best Practices and Design Patterns
  • Design and development of Web/Enterprise applications
  • Architectural assessments
  • Skill assessments
  • Team building

I have been a speaker at major international IT conferences, occasionally in front of audiences of 1000-2000 people, and I contributed to a few books and publications.

I've also developed my personal approach to industrial software development that, in addition to fostering the technical proficiency of the individuals, integrates and balances some of the people-oriented practices already in use in the IT industry with a few principles coming from humanistic disciplines, especially with a systemic perspective.

I currently work in Europe; I also worked for four years in the U.S. on a O-1 visa for "extraordinary abilities in Sciences".

Clients

Among the others, I have provided training and consulting services to the following clients:

Finance

Government

Defense

Insurance

Manufacturing and Retail

Software and Consulting

Networking and Infrastructure

Conference Presentations and Public Events

These are the main conferences and events where I spoke:

  • Devcon 2010 (website)
    May 18-20 2010 in Milan, Italy
    Beyond Agile
  • GeeCON 2010 (website)
    May 12-14 2010 in Poznan, Poland
    Beyond Agile
  • Better Software 2010 (website)
    May 5-6 2010 in Florence, Italy
    Succeeding with Agile
    Systemic Software Development for Agile Teams
  • Agile Central Europe 2010 (website)
    April 8-9 2010 in Kraków, Poland
    Systemic Software Development for Agile Teams
  • Scandinavian Developer Conference 2010 (website)
    March 16-17 2010 in Göteborg, Sweden
    Systemic Software Development for Agile Teams
  • Italian Agile Day 2009 (website)
    November 20th 2009 in Bologna, Italy
    Systemic Software Development for Agile Teams
  • Java User Group Cologne (JUGC)
    June 23rd 2008 in Cologne, Germany
    Seeing Aspects in Web Application Architectures
  • Joburg Centre for Software Engineering ( JCSE ) Events
    January 16th, 2008 in Johannesburg, South Africa
    JRuby: the benefits of mixing Java and Ruby
    January 17th, 2008 in Johannesburg, South Africa
    Social Networking and the New Internet Cultural Trends
    January 29th, 2008 in Cape Town, South Africa
    JRuby: the benefits of mixing Java and Ruby
  • Polish Java User Group (PJUG)
    December 5th 2007 in Krakow, Poland
    Seeing Aspects in Web Application Architectures
  • Software Development West 2003
    March 24-28 2003 in Santa Clara, CA
    Full-day Hands-on EJB Tutorial
    Java Data Objects for the Enterprise presentation
  • Software Development West 2002
    April 22-26, 2002 in San Jose, CA
    Java Data Objects for the Enterprise presentation
  • Software Development East 2000
    October 30-November 3, 2000 in Washington, DC
    Python tutorial, Python/COM presentation, Java multithreading presentation.
  • Windows Professionals Conference Spring 2000
    May 9-11, 2000, in Milan, Italy
    COM Multithreading, Java/COM and Python/COM presentations.
  • Software Development West 2000
    March 19-24, 2000 in San Jose, CA
    Java/CORBA tutorial, Python tutorial, Python/COM/CORBA presentation, Java multithreading presentation.
  • DevWeek 2000
    February 14-18, 2000 in London, UK
    Five Java/CORBA presentations.
  • Software Development East 99
    November 8-12, 1999 in Washington, DC
    Two day Java/CORBA tutorial. Two Java presentations.
  • Windows Professionals Conference 99
    October 5-8, 1999 in Milan, Italy
    Four COM/COM+ presentations.
  • WEB Conference 99
    June 27-28, 1999 in San Francisco, CA
    Two day Java pre-conference tutorial.
  • Software Development Conference West 99
    May 9-14, 1999 in San Francisco, CA
    Java exception handling talk.
  • Windows Professional Conference 98
    October 27-30, 1998 in Milan, Italy
    Nine COM Presentations.
  • Microsoft DevDays 98
    September 10, 1998 in Milan, Italy
    VC++ 6.0 and VJ++ 6.0 presentations.
  • Software Development Conference East 98
    August 17-21, 1998 in Washington, D.C.
    100% Impure: Connecting Java with the rest of the World.
  • DevWeek 98
    February 23-25, 1998 in London, UK
    Four Java presentations.
  • Software Development Conference West 98
    February 11-13, 1998 in San Francisco, CA
    100% Impure: Connecting Java with the rest of the World.
  • Windows Professional Conference 97
    October 7-10, 1997 in Milan, Italy
    A Java pre-conference tutorial. Seven presentations on VJ++, VC++ and COM.
  • Software Development Conference West 97
    April 2-5, 1997 in San Francisco, CA
    Two presentations on Java containers and Java exception handling.
  • Microsoft DevDays 97
    March 20, 1997 in Milan, Italy
    Three presentations on the Developer Studio 5.0 suite.
  • Windows Professional Conference 96
    October 23-25, 1996 in Milan, Italy
    Eight presentations on MFC, Java and OLE/COM.
  • Visual C++ Developers Conference
    July 22-25, 1996 in San Francisco, CA
    Getting the most out of the MFC Doc/View model.
  • Windows Professional Conference 95
    Sep 27-29, 1995 in Milan, Italy
    Five presentations on MFC and OLE/COM.

Publications

  • 2000: "Fast, free Prototyping in Python". Article on Software Development Magazine, March issue
  • 1998: A technical appendix for Bruce Eckel's best-selling book "Thinking in Java"
  • 1997: Technical editor for the Italian edition of the book "Inside COM" from Microsoft Press
  • 1994-1995: Articles in PCWeek Italy on object-oriented development tools and techniques
  • 1992: Conference papers for I.C.O. Graphics 1992, Milan, Italy, about a multimedia station developed for a C.N.R. Special Project (see Chronology)
  • 1992: Conference papers for the IX and X Symposium on Computer Music, Milan, describing a C++ class library for digital sound processing and a real-time application for live computer music performance, both developed by Andrea Provaglio
  • 1991: Farnetani, E. and Provaglio, A.: "Assessing variability of lingual consonants in Italian." Quaderni del Centro di Studio per le Ricerche di Fonetica del C.N.R., Vol. X, 117-145.
  • 1990: A contribution to the book "Scritti in onore di Lucio Croatto" ("Writings in honor of Lucio Croatto"), published by the Italian CNR, describing part of the research work for the above-mentioned CNR/ESPRIT project
  • Papers from the several European and US conferences listed above

Certifications

  • Certified Scrum Master (2009 - current)
  • U.S. O-1 visa for "extraordinary abilities in Sciences" (1999 - 2003)
  • Microsoft Certified Trainer, Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (1997 - 2001)

Technical Skills

Current

  • Java2 Standard Edition (J2SE), Java2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
  • Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (several methods)
  • Unified Modeling Language (UML)
  • Design Patterns (GoF), Design Patterns for Enterprise Applications
  • Web/Enterprise application architectures
  • Extreme Programming and Scrum practices
  • Ruby and Ruby on Rails

Previous

  • C++, Python, Object Pascal, Smalltalk, Pascal, Fortran, C, PL/1 and some Assembler languages
  • CORBA (with C++ and Java)
  • Microsoft (D)COM(+)/OLE/ActiveX, Visual C++, ATL

Essential Chronology

  • 2004-today: I assisted several large- and small-sized clients in Europe, including the European Commission in Brussels, mainly on the development of large Java/Enterprise applications
  • 2004-2007: I've been the main supplier of Java/J2EE training for Unicredit, a major European bank, on a population of about 400 students; I've also provided consulting services to the bank's infrastructure group, to assess and validate their proprietary J2EE architecture
  • 1999-2003: I moved to San Francisco, CA, on a O-1 visa for "extraordinary abilities in Sciences", as an associate of MindView Inc., the company founded by Bruce Eckel – a world-wide known author, famous also for his best-seller "Thinking in Java". For MindView I taught almost every public and in-house edition of the “Thinking in Java Hands-on Seminar” developed by Eckel, and of the “Java2 Enterprise Programming Seminar” which I developed. I also assisted a few MindView's clients on their projects and I spoke at several major IT conferences in the U.S.
  • 1994-1999: I was a member of the teaching staff at Mondadori Informatica Education (MIE), the leading Italian training company for Microsoft products and technologies; I taught the courses on ANSI C++, MFC/ATL, COM/ActiveX and Java. I also spoke at the nation-wide conferences organized by MIE and I supported a few MIE's clients on their projects
  • 1992-1993: I collaborated with Borland Italia, teaching several seminars on Borland C++ nation-wide; I also provided in-house support to companies that used Borland products
  • 1990-1992: I worked with the Institute of Phonetics and Dialectology of the Italian National Research Council (CNR; a government organization that promotes, co-ordinates and regulates scientific research and technological progress in Italy), where I was head of the software development for two research projects: the first project, funded by the EEC, studied co-articulation similarities in seven European languages; the second, a CNR Special Project, developed an Apple-based multimedia station to teach reading to normal and handicapped children
  • 1983-1990: I worked with the Center for Computational Sonology of the Padua University, Italy, where among other activities I implemented a voice synthesizer on an IBM 370/MVS mainframe and created several utilities for digital sound and voice processing (quite advanced projects at that time)