Steve Chaloner has been a software developer, consultant, and mentor since 1999. He specializes in Java, but believes in using the right tool for the job. The right tool for him, for web-based applications at least, is Play! 2.

In addition to collaborating on several open source projects, he is the author of several of his own. The most successful of these, Deadbolt and Deadbolt 2 (for Play! 1 and Play! 2 respectively), are used in commercial products.

In 2011, he was selected as one of the expert reviewers for Play Framework Cookbook, Packt Publishing, along with the creator of Play! and two of its oldest contributors. Since then, he has also acted as the expert reviewer for two more books covering Play! 2 development in both Java and Scala.

In 2012, Steve co-founded The Belgian Play! Framework User Group, details of which can be found at http://play-be.org.

Marius Soutier is a German software engineer who specializes in modern JVM programming languages, frameworks, and development processes.

After graduating with a degree in Business and Computer Science, Marius went on to construct Java-based business solutions for various French enterprises in Paris. Later, he supported a German healthcare organization eager to create patient-care software. Over there, he served as WebObjects developer, architect, and subsequently department head.

During the past year, Marius has been part of a new startup incubator for a large German telecommunications company, which is leveraging advanced functional/object programming and NoSQL.

Marius runs the Cologne Scala User Group and regularly presents functional programming paradigms in Play! Framework 2.

You can read his publications at http://www.soutier.de/blog, follow him at @mariussoutier, or contact him directly at <[email protected]>.