At Ahimsa, we use a lot of dreaddontdie photography. Here’s a little bit more about the artist and ways to connect if you like his work.

dreaddontdie is a personal portfolio designed and developed by me, Kevin M. Gates. I'm a 43 year old husband, father, photographer, designer, developer and Chicago native. I created dreaddontdie in 2001 and invested hundreds of hours to showcase my technical and creative skills.

photography

My LOVE for photography started unexpectedly in 2001, after buying my first digital camera. over the years, travel, events and fatherhood transformed photography into a true passion. In recent years, I've photographed two weddings, produced a music video and have 20+ prints on display at the Microsoft office in Chicago.

education

I started high school at Lincoln Park but eventually dropped out and enrolled at prologue alternative h.s. to earn a diploma. before graduating in 2000, my teacher told me about i.c.stars, a paid business, leadership and technology training program. after visiting i.c.stars to learn more about the program, I bought a book to teach myself HTML. I spent part of the summer building a website for my high school and falling in love with web development. Later that year, I formally applied to i.c.stars, showed them my school's website and was surprised to be 1 of 10 accepted out of 300+ applicants.

i.c.stars

i.c.stars truly changed my life. Writing code felt like a grown-up version of Lego and I was hooked. during my 3 month internship at i.c.stars, I met an amazing person from Microsoft who graciously mentored me and sent me books to read. After completing i.c.stars and interviewing, I started working at Microsoft in January 2001 shortly after turning 20 years old.

microsoft

I started as an Associate Technology Specialist focused on Office and Windows until joining the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) in Chicago as a Datacenter Manager. over time, I shifted to an Office 365 Specialist, delivering executive briefings and architecture design sessions for Microsoft's largest customers. I was later promoted to technical director, but after 14 years in the MTC, it was time for a change, so I transitioned to a Global Technology Strategist for Accenture, Avanade and Aon.

In august of 2016, I returned to my technical roots as a Cloud Solution Architect for Azure in the Global Partner Solutions division, helping customers and partners build applications using Azure.

community

Over the years, I've strived to inspire the next generation by mentoring, speaking at numerous events and hosting thousands of students & adults at the Microsoft office for tours, career talks and workshops.

social

You can find me on instagram, linkedin, github, youtube, istock and adobe stock.