25 - A conversation on Mental Health
Mental health is a topic that carries real stigma, yet touches almost everyone at some point. In this episode, Chris Reddington sits down with Andrew Nathan — a former Australian Special Forces soldier — for an honest, unscripted conversation about their personal mental health journeys.
Andrew shares the impact of losing multiple friends to suicide, the devastating diagnosis at 35 that shattered his identity as an athlete and soldier, and how he found the courage to speak publicly about his experiences. Chris reflects on the challenges of living alone during the UK’s COVID-19 lockdown, the toll of isolation, and the months he stepped back from recording to focus on his own wellbeing.
Together they explore:
- Why people in high-performance roles — military, tech, content creation — are especially prone to silent struggles
- The importance of being an active listener and assuming positive intent when someone opens up
- How externalising your thoughts — talking, writing, or messaging — can be the first step to recovery
- Why professional success and public visibility don’t protect anyone from mental health challenges
Neither Chris nor Andrew are medical professionals. If you or someone you know needs support, please seek help through appropriate medical or mental health services in your country.
This episode is simply two people sharing their stories — because sometimes that is exactly what someone else needs to hear.
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4 - Hackathons
Hackathons are a powerful accelerator for learning, innovation, and community building — but what does it actually take to participate in, organize, or mentor at one? In this episode, Chris is joined by Maria Vrabie, an experienced hackathon participant, organizer, and mentor with a background at Microsoft. They explore the full spectrum of hackathon formats: from university weekend events and charity hack days to corporate open hacks run with enterprise customers. Maria shares candid stories from both sides of the organizer table, practical advice for first-timers, and why hackathons are just as relevant for seasoned engineers as they are for students looking to break into tech.
V002 - Weekly Technology Vlog #2 (Show Updates, Azure Updates, CloudFamily.info)
Chris covers channel updates for Cloud with Chris, including a new video on GitHub Codespaces and a blog series on open source contributions to Hugo themes. He highlights the Azure Updates RSS feed as an essential resource for tracking Azure service changes, and spotlights community contributors JonnyChipz, Sarah Lean (TechieLass), CloudFamily.info, and Richard Hooper (PixelRobots).
V003 - Weekly Technology Vlog #3 (Contributing to OSS, Azure Thames Valley and Tech News)
Chris announces his involvement with relaunching the Azure Thames Valley meetup, recaps the static content hosting pattern episode and his open source blog, and previews upcoming talks at AzureIsh Live and a SquaredUp webinar on application observability with Azure Monitor and App Insights. He covers Azure Updates including public IP SKU upgrades, built-in Azure Policy for NSG flow logs, GitHub's availability in Iran, the GitHub Enterprise Server 3.0 release candidate, and Docker Desktop integration with Azure Container Instances.