the jStart team

John's Bio

John Gerken is a Senior Software Architect, where he is responsible for recognizing, promoting and developing prototypes of software technologies and trends that could positively impact IBM's customers. John is a recognized thought leader in the area of Situational Applications, widgets and mashup ecosystems and is a principle evangelist for these technologies to IBM customers. Mr. Gerken is a member of the North Carolina Technical Experts Council (NC TEC), which is an IBM Academy affiliated technical advisory and vitality organization serving the RTP, NC area.

Education

• Bachelor of Arts in Jazz Performance Studies, University of North Texas
• Masters of Science in Computer Science, University of North Texas

Areas of Expertise

Mashups, mashup platforms and mashup ecosystems, Situational Applications, widget models and widget-based business models, Web 2.0, community building, Web services and of course Java. Currently, John is leading the research and development of technologies to enable end users to easily create, deploy and move widgets throughout the enterprise. For more information on this topic, please visit our Widget Generation overview page.