Reflecting on 2025: Finding Joy and Creating Value

As the year comes to a close, it is time to reflect on the past 12 months. 2025 has been a “transformative” year for me, not just in terms of the code I wrote or the talks I gave, but in how I approach my work and life. It was a year where I actively sought to rediscover joy in what I do, embraced a new way of working with AI, and started thinking about a sustainable future for my projects.

In this post, I want to share the story of my 2025, the highlights, the lessons learned, and a glimpse into what 2026 holds.

Highlights of 2025

Here are some of the key moments from this year:

• 13.000km cycled: Completed my biggest cycling year yet, where I had my personal best on the Mont Ventoux, but also my worst time, six weeks later on it.

• Demo Time’s explosive growth: Reached over 26,000 installs and saw it used at major stages like OpenAI DevDays, Microsoft Ignite, and GitHub Universe.
• Launching EngageTime: Built and successfully tested a new attendee engagement platform at CollabDays Belgium and VisugXL.
• Speaking across Europe: Delivered 15+ sessions at conferences including ESPC, Techorama, and the European Collaboration Summit.
• Embracing Agentic AI: Shifted my workflow to treat AI as a teammate, allowing me to build tools like FrameFit in just 3 hours.
• Hugo to Astro migration: Successfully migrated my blog to Astro after 6 years with Hugo, improving my developer experience.
• Community contributions: Published 30 blog posts and continued my journey as a Microsoft MVP, GitHub Star, and Google Developer Expert.

2025 in Numbers

I love looking at the data to see what I’ve been up to. Here is a breakdown of my year in numbers:

• 5378 GitHub commits
• 41 New repositories created
• 26,000+ Demo Time installations
• 30 Blog posts published
• 15+ Speaking engagements
• 13,000 Kilometers cycled
• 50.000.000 badges generated with the Visitor Badge service

Finding joy and creativity

At the start of the year, I realized I needed to get to know myself better. I wanted to find a way to get more joy out of my work, and to identify what gives me energy and what drains it. I decided to work with a coach, and it was one of the best decisions I made.

This journey allowed me to explore my creativity again. It started with small things, like building a simple app to update my desktop background with the daily Microsoft Bing image, just because seeing a beautiful new landscape each day made me smile. It extended to practical tools, like an app to check the number of remaining GitHub Copilot premium calls. These small projects were the spark I needed to reignite my passion for building.

Embracing AI as a teammate

A huge part of this creative rediscovery was shifting how I work with AI. I moved from simple prompt engineering to an “agentic-first” workflow. I stopped just asking for code snippets and started treating AI as a partner in the development process.

The Bing wallpaper app, for instance, was purely created with GitHub Copilot and coding agents. I defined what I wanted and the technology stack, and we built it together. This new workflow allowed me to be more ambitious. I built FrameFit, a macOS screenshot utility, in just three hours. It wasn’t about replacing my skills; it was about removing the friction between an idea and its execution.

Getting interviewed by AI

One of the experiments I ran this year was changing how I write. Inspired by Daniela Petruzalek’s Speedgrapher, I started using AI not just to generate text, but to interview me.

I created a set of Ghostwriter Agents that work across GitHub Copilot, VS Code, and Claude. The process is simple: an AI agent interviews me about a topic, asking open-ended questions to capture the context and narrative. Then, another agent analyzes my writing style (my “voice”), and a third agent combines the transcript and voice profile to draft the post.

The process reshaped my writing: it makes me explain the reasons behind my choices and teases out the narratives that vanish in a blank editor. This post began as an AI-led interview that I later edited and shaped into the final draft.

From passion project to sustainable future

One of the most important lessons I learned this year is about value and freedom. I used to think that making all my tools available for free was the ultimate form of freedom. I realized that wasn’t the case. Value is creating the freedom.

Demo Time is the perfect example. It started as a tool to solve my own frustration, because “demos are meant to fail.” Today, it’s a staple for speakers worldwide. To ensure I can keep supporting and innovating on it, I announced a plan to build a sustainable ecosystem around it, while keeping the core extension free and open-source. This shift in mindset is crucial for the longevity of the projects I love.

The birth of EngageTime

This year also saw the birth of a major new project: EngageTime.

As a speaker and organizer since 2012, I’ve always felt something was missing. I wanted a “Bird’s-eye view” of my sessions—better feedback, easier connections, and a seamless experience for attendees. In June, I started listing these frustrations, and EngageTime was the answer.

We tested it live at CollabDays Belgium and Visug XL, and the results were fantastic. Seeing attendees join sessions by simply scanning a QR code—no auth, no app download required—and interacting in real-time was a validation of the vision. It proved that we were solving a real problem.

Looking forward to 2026

As I look toward 2026, I have some big goals:

• Commercializing EngageTime: I will start selling EngageTime to events and speakers, with a foundational talk coming up in early January.
• Schleck GranFondo: My first major personal goal of the year is to ride the Schleck GranFondo in May.
• Tour des Grands Cols Alpes: Later in the year, I will embark on a 7-day cycling tour with 17,000 meters of elevation. We are riding this in memory of a friend who passed away from cancer this year. He rode it in 2022, and his wife will be joining us. It will be a special and emotional journey. 💫

2025 was the year I rediscovered my rhythm.. I’m entering 2026 with a clear sense of direction, a sustainable approach to my work, and a heart full of gratitude.

Happy New Year! 🎆

---