January 2012 Tech Student of the Month – Chevon Christie
Happy New Years to all of our readers! We’re kicking off 2012 with an exciting new profile of our latest Tech Student of the Month, Chevon Christie. Chevon is a Microsoft Student Partner and is currently a Junior studying Computer Science at the Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College in New York City. He is a passionate developer with a number of hit apps out in the Windows Phone Marketplace such as NYC Travel and Drynks. It is our pleasure to share his story with the tech student community.
Chevon’s passion for technology started at the young age of 12 when he got his first computer. It was then that he began a long history of effective self-teaching by method of trial and error. He saw his computer as a puzzle with which he was able to continuously challenge himself by breaking code and fixing it, all the while learning and improving his skills. He attended Thomas A. Edison High School in NYC, a career and technical education based high school, where he was given the option to choose a technical course path outside of the standard curriculum. He decided to go with Cisco networking because it provided him a view into how computers communicate with each other and how they are connected. He was able to work with hands-on projects such as setting up routers and Internet connections between computers and was intrigued by the process. He found himself wondering how devices are able to understand user-inputted commands and in efforts to find the answers, he decided to teach himself more about programming. By junior year, Chevon began learning languages such as C and C++ from various resources he found on the internet. One of the main resources he utilized throughout the learning process was the IDE, or Integrated Development Environment, Dev-C++ with which he was able to create his first Hangman game.
Chevon is currently attending the Macaulay Honors College at Hunters College in New York City where he is majoring in Computer Science. As a junior, he has already made strides in the Windows Phone development space with 5 apps already published to the Marketplace and more on the way. He found early success in the Marketplace with his app Hangman Deluxe which has over 60,000 downloads. Not to mention, with the use of the Microsoft Advertisement SDK, he has been able to bring in enough revenue from his apps to support himself throughout the past year!
Chevon’s passion for the Windows Phone platform started when he attended a Fire-starter event upon the launch of Windows Phone in New York. Here, he was introduced to the platform and was shown just how easy it is to build an app from the ground up. He saw this as the perfect opportunity to put his technical knowledge to use and with the aid of free development resources such as the Dreamspark program, he was able to get straight to work on his first app. His early successes in the Marketplace inspired him to share his experiences with fellow students and encourage them to develop apps. As of today, he has been able to drive more than 20 apps created by other students into the Marketplace. His leadership within the space led him to be recognized by those around him and as a result, he was flown to a Windows Phone Hackathon event in Boston where he gave a presentation on his experiences as a student developer. In light of this, he was eventually chosen to be a Microsoft Student Partner to lead the technology discussion on his campus, connect with students and faculty, and inspire them to get involved.
Outside of Microsoft, Chevon is currently interning at Trendrr, a social media analytics company, where he is able to work with Java and C++. He is also spending some time working on a side project with Rémas which was inspired from a project he started while volunteering at the 2011 Microsoft NYC GiveCamp, a weekend-long charity event where software developers, designers, and database administrators come together to build custom software applications for non-profit organizations. The project is geared towards helping immigrants gain better accessibility to services at local banks and credit unions as well as improve their financial options in the US.
Despite his incredibly busy schedule inside and outside of the classroom, Chevon has been able to maintain a straight-A transcript! He plans to graduate next year as part of the class of 2013 and hopes to continue pursuing his passion for technology and programming post-graduation. We’d like to thank Chevon for his spectacular efforts as a Microsoft Student Partner and Windows Phone developer and for setting such a great example for the rest of the tech student community!
Follow Chevon on Twitter! https://twitter.com/#!/chevonchr
Visit his blog: https://blog.chevonchristie.com/
Visit his Studio’s Website: https://www.binaryred.com
Read the November Tech Student of the Month’s Profile on Patrick Godwin
Inspired by Chevon’s story? Sign up to become a Microsoft Student Partner and be a leader on your campus!