Day Three of JavaOne 2025 was held on March 20th, 2025, at the Oracle Conference Center in Redwood Shores, California. Key takeaways included: Java is nothing without the Java community; people first, technology second; be inspired, be connected, be involved; we can't invite a new generation of developers to the Java community without nurturing our existing community (Sharat Chander); and how to build AI-powered applications using Helidon and LangChain4J.
What follows is a summary of the keynote address and highlighted presentations.
Java Community Keynote: the Future of Java is You
Ana-Maria Mihalceanu, senior developer advocate at Oracle and Sharat Chander, senior director, Product Management & Developer Engagement at Oracle, facilitated this keynote address entitled, The Future of Java is You.
To emphasize the importance of Java community, Chander kicked off the keynote by stating:
Java is nothing without you. The community is the backbone of why Java has been so vibrant these past 30 years. So we want to say welcome, welcome to you here in the audience, welcome to everyone who is watching on the Livestream, welcome to everyone around the globe who has made Java so empowered for our careers.
As part of the 30th birthday celebration, all of the audience members were encouraged to write down what developers will expect from the Java language over the next 10 years and place them in a time capsule which will be sealed and opened in 10 years.
Jim Grisanzio, software program management at Oracle and host of the Duke's Corner Java Podcast, facilitated an on-stage live podcast with panelists: Cay Horstmann, Professor Emeritus at San Jose State University; Marit van Dijk, developer advocate at JetBrains; and Lize Raes, developer advocate and product manager at Naboo. Grisanzio posed questions to the panelists that included: "What are the cool things in Java?"; "How can developers contribute?"; "What does Java mean to you?"; and "What was special to you at JavaOne?"
The Java Platform Enrichment section of the keynote featured David Delabassee, senior director of Java Developer Relations at Oracle, who facilitated a discussion with Stuart Marks, consulting member of the technical staff at Oracle, and Don Raab, Eclipse Collections project lead, on how to improve the quality and stability of the Java Platform by promoting the testing of open-source projects with early-access builds of the OpenJDK.
Mihalceanu and Chander returned on stage to facilitate The Java Quiz, a mobile app where attendees participated to win prizes. Questions included: "Java wasn't always Java! What was its original name?" and "What slogan was used to highlight Java cross-platform capabilities?"
Heather Stephens, senior director, head of Java in Education at Oracle, Crystal Sheldon, director, Java in Education at Oracle, and Denys Makogon, principal software development engineer at Oracle, discussed all the various activities that make up the Java in Education initiative at Oracle. These included the new Learn.java website, introduced in the opening keynote as "a place for beginners, students, and teachers of the Java programming language," and The Java Playground, a simple online tool that helps developers explore the Java language. Sheldon stated that this can "be a valuable educational asset for these teachers to use with their students."
Chander and Colt McNealy, founder and managing member at LittleHorse, appeared on stage to discuss the future of Java. Reflecting on Scott McNealy's appearance during the opening keynote, Chander first asked:
Scott's inspiration as far as where Java started and what it has done, but the question is where is Java going to go for the next 30 years and beyond?
Chander and Colt McNealy discussed one of the more important dimensions of Java, namely compatibility, at LittleHorse, a company that designs workflows for event-driven applications.
Chander then discussed the importance of the Java User Groups, Java Champions and the Oracle developer relations team.
The keynote concluded with the Oracle developer relations team, the folks who participated in the community keynote, and most importantly, Duke, on stage where everyone sang "Happy Birthday!"
Highlighted Presentations: Helidon AI Hands-On Lab
Building AI-Powered Applications with Helidon and LangChain4J, a hands-on lab facilitated by Daniel Kec, Java Developer at Oracle, and Joe Di Pol, engineering manager at Oracle.
Kec and Di Pol demonstrated how developers can build AI-powered applications using Helidon and LangChain4J. To get started, attendees were asked to clone the Helidon Labs GitHub repository. From there, step-by-step instructions were provided to accomplish tasks such as:
- Create the initial bootstrap project that includes a minimal Helidon SE application to build and verify that the provided REST service is working
- Use Helidon LangChain4J integration to enable AI capabilities
- Configure Helidon Inject to work with AI services
- Add and configure an OpenAI chat model
- Integrate an Embedding Store for enhanced intelligence
By the end of this hands-on lab, attendees were able to build a fully functional application and a strong foundation for leveraging Helidon in modern AI applications.
Conclusion
JavaOne 2025, a three-day event, consisting of keynotes, presentations and hands-on labs, is organized by Oracle and the developer relations team. The session catalog provides all of the details and developers can watch the Java Turned 30 Livestream that includes the Java community keynote and Billy Korando, developer advocate at Oracle, interviewing community guests Vincent Mayers, partner at connectevents.io, and Don Raab, Eclipse Collections project lead.
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