Last June 2005, Prof. Rommel P. Feria and Mr. John Paul R. Petines were honored by being awarded Founding Java Champions by Sun Microsystems, Inc. This makes them automatic members of the international panel of Java leaders. They are 2 of only 20 that were selected worldwide.

Currently there are approximately 70 Java Champions in the world, out of a pool of 6,000,000 Java developers worldwide.

Matt Thompson, director of Sun Developer Network, says in a recent article on Java Developer's Journal, the idea is to build "a community of Java Champions that reflects the top echelon of contributors to the Java Community." And he goes further: "I look at these folks as the heroes of the Java platform ... These folks are truly both a wealth of knowledge for us to tap into, as well as a great resource to work with in making the Java platform easier to adopt worldwide."