2025 Retrospective
Summary
Between awards, friendships, 12 talks, massive numbers that surpassed 230 MILLION downloads on projects I authored, and several first-time experiences, 2025 took me to such incredible places that I could easily keep things this way forever.
- I hope my story inspires you and that you choose to go far beyond your comfort zone 🤘🏻
NOVEMBER 2024: Previously on 💡
PDS Experience, 11/30 and 12/01/2024 » Hugo Santos (poster), Erick Wendel, and me.
Following a specific person, Hugo Santos, made me realize I was very close to achieving a goal that seemed impossible: recognition not just from people around me, but from the entire developer community.
It wasn't about learning the content itself—he didn't even know I existed—but I wanted to get closer to the community he created. It was about finding inspiration: I had something incredible in my hands but had no idea how to show it to the world.
In my mind, recognition was about popularity and influence. This made me look in the wrong place: projects with few stars and social media with little engagement 😂
On the other hand, my projects had been downloaded more than 10 million times in 2024 alone, and I didn't realize the value of that.
Somehow, I felt that in this community I could 'fix' this in myself. I went to PDS Experience (Grupo PDS) and, in short, there I learned in practice:
This really simple thought was more than enough to shift my focus to the right place, and it completely changed what my next year would be like: 2025.
Spoilers 🍿
- The impact led to recognition, which led to the popularity of my main projects 🔥
- In less than a year, the number jumped from 10 million to over... 230 million 🌟
- In total, I gave talks to more than 3 thousand people (in person and online) 🤘🏻
JANUARY 2025 🎓
First impression of the Awesome You website.
I founded Awesome You 🐜
Instead of just another list of popular projects, I decided to turn my pain into something that would shift people's attention beyond the projects they use: to those who maintain them.
More than projects, meet incredible people 🇧🇷
And it worked: even without ever spending a single cent on ads, zero partnerships or promotions, the Awesome You website has already had more than 40 thousand unique visits so far 🔥
Not only that, the initiative features incredible people. It's truly worth getting to know them 🫶🏻
Besides that, I also officially joined NodeBR 🐢✨
MARCH 2025 🐷
GitHub Brasil: Open Source Friday, 03/14/2025 — Pachi Parra and me.
My first talk of the year was, simply put, on the official GitHub Brasil channel, showcasing Poku in practice, complete with Live Coding and even open questions about open source.
In fact, it was the premiere Live of the Open Source Friday program, with 🥑 Pachi Parra 🎉
My biggest impact comes specifically from GitHub, where all my open source projects are hosted. Now imagine how happy I was to be able to debut the program, feel the reception from people watching, and see folks even making memes about buff Poku 😂
— By the way, I'm missing a GitHub Stars here, huh? 😅
MAY 2025 🏆
🏆 Unboxing Microsoft MVP Award 2025 with Roberto and me.
At exactly 4 AM on May 1st, I received the email saying I was accepted into the Microsoft MVP program.
This was the first and probably the biggest proof that impact indeed leads to recognition 🎖️
The coolest part?
100% of my contributions directly involve open source and how my projects and contributions impact the Microsoft ecosystem at various levels, especially:
- GitHub, TypeScript & Node.js, and Azure.
Still in May, I received a truly unexpected mention after a comment on YouTube:
Deyvid Nascimento on Live at Faculdade Impacta Digital.
Here you can see how things completely changed from 2024 to 2025, right? 🔥
JUNE 2025 🗻
For the first time in my life:
- I visited another country (Cusco) 🇵🇪
- I saw and touched snow ❄️
- I fed Llamas and Alpacas 🦙
- I experienced temperatures below 0 ºC 🥶
- I climbed mountains (that one was rough, hehe)
Besides my wife, traveling with such dear people as Erick Wendel and Ana Neri was what made everything even more special.
One day I'm following these two references on my computer screen, and out of nowhere, I find myself traveling the world with them 😂
From the most sincere place inside me, this unexpected friendship is the greatest gift 2025 gave me 💚🩷💙
🇵🇪 Laguna Humantay: Erick Wendel, Ana Neri, Micaele (my wife, who doesn't have LinkedIn), and me.
Microsoft Reactor.
I organized my first event for NodeBR and Awesome You.
An interesting fact:
- The event was at exactly the same location as my first talk, at Microsoft Reactor 🐝
JULY 2025 🐼
Codecon Summit, 07/19/2025
On July 19th, I delivered my biggest talk of the year, with more than 500 people in person.
Codecon Summit, 07/19/2025 from the speaker's perspective.
The coolest part about having a full house is that it wasn't a talk about hype or Artificial Intelligence: it was a talk deconstructing an open source project I built from complete scratch and teaching how to create... A test runner 😅🧪
But it wasn't random: the event theme was literally 'Embrace the Hacker Way' at Codecon Summit.
If you enjoy speaking, pay attention to this next part ⬇️
I want to give a special thanks here to Marcel dos Santos who made me rethink even more the smallest details when submitting talks, where literally everything matters, for example:
- Is your portfolio up to date? Does it work? Does it make sense with the image you want to convey?
- Is it easy to find your contributions and projects?
- How do we impact and communicate with the developer community?
- Is the talk aligned with the event theme?
You see it goes far beyond just submitting content and waiting? 💡
Well, it's only fair to thank Gabriel Nunes again for making one of the most incredible events of my life a reality 🫰🏻
Papinho Tech, 07/09/2025 — YouTube and Spotify.
I was invited for the first time to participate in a Podcast, Papinho Tech by Gustavo Caetano.
In fact, it's worth watching again 🎧
AUGUST 2025 🎁
Unlike all previous talks, where I submitted each one myself and waited for curation, this was the first time I received an invitation to speak at an event.
EACH-USP: Information Systems' Week
The coolest part: it was my birthday month. So, Estevon Biazussi Bonai ended up giving me my first birthday present ✨
Of all the talks I've ever given, this was the one where I received the most questions after finishing: it was over 15 minutes of Q&A.
Thanks for the patience, Information Systems' Week! I hope with so many questions, people must have enjoyed the content 😂
And to close with a flourish:
- It was my first time closing an event 🤘🏻😎
- On the other hand, imagine the pressure of speaking right after Professor Isidro PhD 😅
SEPTEMBER 2025 🌊
Roga DX: the largest technology event in Northeast Brazil
Imagine giving a talk on such delicate topics, such as:
- Data Exposure
- Vulnerabilities
- Consequences that lead to user life risks
- Bringing real cases of vulnerabilities that led to cyberbullying and involved one of the most dangerous internet communities and the FBI 🚨
... And then simply having the Technology Secretariat of the ALAGOAS STATE GOVERNMENT itself share your talk 🤯
And as if it couldn't get any better, I simply recorded a Podcast in a glass room at Roga DX with Gustavo Guanabara, one of the biggest inspirations in my life 🖖
Roga DX: a very happy person and Gustavo Guanabara.
Imagine having the opportunity to share experiences and knowledge through open source with the people you admire most.
- Here I realized the importance of bringing content that goes beyond code and speaks directly to real life.
- How having quality networking takes us to unimaginable places and people.
- Enjoying the beach is sometimes good 😌
I delivered my first duo talk:
TDC São Paulo: Larissa Azevedo and me.
There's a really interesting curiosity/strategy here (and a bit of culture):
Last year I joined Larissa Azevedo's mentorship, not with the intent of the mentorship itself, but to get closer to someone who gives various talks in the most diverse places, and she accepted the 'challenge'.
My intention was simple:
- To be close to someone who is close to people I want to get closer to.
- As a bonus, participate and learn from a truly welcoming community.
I knew I would eventually reach various places on my own, but you know that saying?
No coaching phrases here: this saying leads to the African philosophy 'I am because we are', the inspiration behind the creation of Ubuntu (yes, the operating system).
And this was my main strategy for 2025:
- Walk alongside those who have already lived what I want to live, who have already walked the paths I want to walk.
That said, what started with 'being close [...]' led to two duo talks with the person I trusted with this strategy and who ended up trusting me back ✨
NOVEMBER 2025 😱🌟
- Poku hits over 100 thousand downloads per year (over 150 thousand in gross total).
- The sum of all my open source projects surpasses 200 million per year (233 million currently and almost 280 million in gross total).
This was my goal for, who knows, the end of 2026:
- It didn't even reach December 2025 and it was already done 😂
DECEMBER 2025 🤠
I delivered my first mentorship and of course it was about open source:
DevFest Cerrado, 12/13/2025: Open mentorship on open source.
To close the year in style, I wanted to make a parallel with 2024, and with special thanks to Wendel Marques, I had the opportunity to make this possible:
- Finish 2025 speaking at the same event I finished 2024: DevFest Cerrado by GDG Goiânia ✨
DevFest Cerrado, 12/13/2025: My last talk of the year.
I want to give an especially special thanks to my wife, who accompanied me throughout this entire journey.
Of course, there's no way to fit everything here, but if you follow me, you've certainly seen what didn't fit here 🫰🏻
- If you organize events and made it this far, I'll be very happy to be invited to your event 🎤
Thank you so much if anyone had the courage to make it this far—not a single letter was written by AI, I swear!
- Everything is 100% human and every single character was manually written by me (including the em dashes — shift + opt + -).