(Updated to January 2013)

I was born on 1975 in Vicenza, a small town in an area formerly known as the Rich Italian North East; I haven't lived there in the past twelve years, but they tell me things are quite different now.

I don't remember much of my childhood there; as I get older, I seem to forget more and more things. I blame my job for that, the need to memorise countless information to stay always up to date with technology. But it's probably just the age.
I went to high school at the Liceo Scientifico Paolo Lioy, which didn't have a website back then, because the Web, as we know it, hadn't been invented yet. Following that, I got my Computer Engineering Laurea Degree at the University of Padua.

Even though I'm not Steve Jobs, I sometimes think to the past, and discover that some particular experiences I had ended up to be the seeds of my future life or career. To date, I still haven't found anything like that in my university career.
What I can remember is only a huge amount of time spent memorising math, physics, chemistry and many other topics which I haven't used anymore in my life. But at the end I got the piece of paper of which, believe it or not, I ignore the current location. I hope my parents still have it somewhere.

Shortly after getting the degree, I moved to Milano to join IBM. Even though I didn't like the city, I still remember that period vividly. I met there lots of people who I still consider friends and learnt so much in the company. In that period I also started travelling for business, thing that became a constant in my following years. I remember spending weeks in hotels in Bari, Bologna, Raileigh, Verona.

After quitting my job in IBM, I started working as freelance, first in Italy and then for four years in Düsseldorf, Germany. During my time in Germany I also founded a startup called Mindquilt and spent some months in Austin, Texas, to bootstrap it. I blogged quite a but about it, for instance here, here, here and here. Even if Mindquilt still exists, I'm not involved in its operations anymore, so don't ask me for updates or a discount :)

Since the beginning of 2011 London, UK is my new home. I quit freelancing, at least temporarily, to join VisualDNA and have fun again working in the startup world. London is the city where I wanted to live since I first visited it ten years ago, and it still amazes me, after two years, how many new things I discover every month here.

Other notable things about me

One the most rewarding activities I did back in Milano was to create the Java User Group Milano; I'm not involved in its management anymore, but it is still, arguably, one of the most successful european user groups with more than 500 members, monthly meetings and a very active mailing list.

Thanks to my involvement with the Java User Group community I have been invited to the Sun's (Oracle?) Java Champions Community and had the opportunity to speak at many italian and European conferences.

I wrote two books: Patterns: Direct Connections for Intra- and Inter-enterprise connections (IBM Press, 2003) and Java Enterprise Edition 5 (Hoepli Editore, 2006). Writing has been a passion since high school, and from time to time I'm toying with the idea of writing a third book.

I'm an Apache Felix committer; even if I'm inactive in that role since a few years now, I consider it one of the main accomplishment of my career.

I have a London Daily Photo Tumblr...

... and a Everything About Big Data blog