I’m grateful to all my professional and personal networks for this year. It has been full of tears, sweat, and blood all over my face once again. Let’s not worry about that. I want to start with a big Thank You to all of you who made this year possible.

If I look back at what stood out in 2025, just before we hit 2026.

Oracle ACE Pro 

I was thrilled to be nominated to the Oracle ACE Program as an ACE Pro in April. This recognition opened doors to launch a technical blog series on vector search and AI integration with MySQL.

Project Antalya at Altinity, Inc. 

We announced native Iceberg catalog and Parquet support on S3 for ClickHouse. This pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with open lakehouse analytics.

MySQL MCP Server 

Introduced a lightweight, secure MySQL MCP server bridging relational databases and LLMs. Practical AI integration starts with safety and observability.

FOSDEM & MySQL’s 30th Birthday 

I have one of my busiest agendas in ten years. It includes the MySQL Devroom Committee, a talk, and an O’Reilly book signing for #mysqlcookbook4e. Additionally, there are 6 talks from Altinity.

O’Reilly Recognition 

After 50+ hours of flights for conferences, I came home to O’Reilly’s all-time recognition for the MySQL Cookbook. It was a moment I won’t forget.

Sailing While Working 

Once again, months at sea with salt, humidity, and wind were challenging. We handled tickets, RCAs, and meetings. We even recorded a podcast on ferry maneuvering. Born to sail, forced to work, making it work anyway.

I am immensely grateful to the #MySQL, #ClickHouse, and #opensource communities. Thank you to my co-authors Sveta Smirnova and Ibrar Ahmed. I also thank my nominator, Vinicius Grippa. I appreciate the Altinity team and every conference organizer who gave me a stage this year.

Recognition is an invitation to contribute more, not a finish line. Looking forward to more open-source collaboration in 2026.

If you’re passionate about open-source databases, MySQL, ClickHouse, or AI integration, or just want to connect, reach out.

#opensource #mysql #clickhouse #oracleacepro #ai #vectorsearch #sailing #LinkedInRewind #Coauthor #2025wrapped