Sameera Kapila

I remember first meeting Chris during SXSW 2012. If I recall correctly, he had just spoken and was sharing more about his book at the trade show after. I went up to talk to him and his co-speaker, Kyle, for their talk. He asked me a lot about what made me come to SXSW and my interest in HTML5. I said I was teaching at a university 30 minutes south and that I was looking forward to reading his book and integrating it into my web class curriculum. He offered me a free copy of his book and signed it.

Within months, he and Ari had stayed in touch, always had been there to advise on curriculum, and even let my students volunteer at Artifact 2013 so they could be exposed to the web world. It helped those students build confidence and proficiency of the web, and may still code and design today.

Christopher asked me to be his co-host NBSP (non-breaking space) and it was some of the best and most fun times for those few years. We'd have long chats with guests about the web world. His questions towards guests were always so thoughtful! As I continued teaching, and continuing to learn more about the web, myself, Christopher would invite me to tag along to live streams of CSS conferences he put on with E4H. We'd record podcast episodes after and he always went out of his way to get my thoughts on things even if we were interviewing others.

My memories of Christopher are fond and I always remember him being the most humble and curious person. I'm thankful for years of friendship with him and Ari. And for their endless support in anything I did to grow.