Microsoft Academic Day

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Yesterday, I attended the Microsoft Academic Day at Biology Dept., Delhi University. The event started off with a keynote from Ms.Swati who is a developer at Microsoft India Development Center at Hydrabad. She introduced Microsoft's academic initiatives like www.msapp.net, Imagine Cup, msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun etc.

Then a basic introduction to .NET technologies was given. We were given examples of coding on the Visual Studio Express. A tabbed browser was coded in C# within a few minutes. A couple of other coding examples were also shown in VB and Web Service Express.

The day also included a session by Yashwant Kanitkar and Ashwani Sharma. Yashwant Kanitkar is the author of many best-selling books on C/C++. While, Ashwani is an Academic Developer Evangelist with Microsoft India. This session was the most knowledgeable session for the day. We were introduced to many amazing possibilities of these new technologies especially, Visual C++. The basics of device driver programming were introduced. Other features introduced included game programming and graphics. Also, the part i liked the most was the integration of bluetooth devices by programming them as per our needs. This session ended with a 'thank you' typed from a smart phone (with Microsoft Windows Mobile OS) which operated as an notebook keyboard using bluetooth.

After this excellent session Microsoft had a lots of goodies to give out. They gave all students:
1. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite (180-Day Trial, 3-DVD Pack)
2. Technical Content (2 CD pack) - Tutorials, Videos, Presentations and Articles
3. PCQuest-Microsoft Academic Newsletter
4. Brochure Prentice Hall of India - with offer of 25%discountt on membership
They have also promised to deliver Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition to our institute because the lot was stuck at the customs.

This was really an excellent initiative from Microsoft's side and gave students as-well-as-faculty members a great opportunity to learn.