Valentin holds a master degree in Information and Computer Science from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland (EPFL). After he finished studying in 2000, Valentin worked as a software engineer with SRI International (Menlo Park, USA) and as a principal engineer in the Software Engineering Laboratory at EPFL. In 2002, as a good patriot, he came back to Switzerland to co-found a start-up called Condris Technologies, a company that provides IT development and consulting services and specializes in the creation of innovative next-generation software architecture solutions as well as secure wireless telecommunication infrastructures. Since 2004, Valentin serves as a senior IT consultant in one of the largest private banks in Switzerland, where he works on next-generation e-banking platforms. Starting in 2008, Valentin created Consulthys, a new venture that strongly focuses on leveraging Web 2.0 technologies in order to reduce the cultural gap between IT and business people. Valentin's main research interests include service-oriented architecture and web services, Web 2.0 and Ajax. During his spare time, he hangs out as a moderator at JavaRanch.com and JavaBlackBelt.com, two of the largest Java development communities on the web. Valentin also serves as a technical editor at Manning Publications (NYC, US) and as a technical reviewer at O'Reilly & Associates (CA, US).