Second part of this three part series ;)

Vincent Vergonjeanne Introduction

'Programming from the age of 12 year old, spending my adolescence coding Video Games in the basement of a friend artist, I created my own company at the age of 19 year old, during the Internet Bubble. Not a strong commercial success but an extremely valuable experience. I then worked for the Video Game and the Internet industry. After 2 years, I decided to stop working and finish my studies to get my Bachelor/Master degree at EPITA (Famous French IT University).

Diploma in pocket, I travelled in Australia where I worked for the mobile phone and the automation industry. Finally today I'm working for Microsoft in Ireland on the competitive and challenging field of Web Analysis.

Specialties:

Advanced Visualizations, Video Game Development, GDI+, Silverlight, WPF, DirectX, .NET, C#, AJAX, DirectX, J2ME ...'

Silverlight

Silverlight is a cross-platform, cross-browser plugin for delivering rich media content over the internet. It's 1.0 version is programmed in XAML and Javascript, while its latest version, 1.1 can be developed using Microsofts C# programming language.

Basically put, its Microsofts version of FLEX, but if your used to VisualStudio and C# - its so much better!

So on the run up to QuMIX I'll be putting up some quick profile information and a bit about what the speakers will be talking about!

Liam Cronin Introduction

I first met Liam it was before the ImagineCup 2007 finals and he was talking to us about promoting and entering the event, of course I had my eyes set on winning when later we were told anyone involved with Microsoft couldn't enter... but its ok... I forgive him... After a phenomenal job with the ImagineCup in Ireland and huge success in the finals, Liam was interested in setting up an All Ireland Student Partner Programme, and met up with a couple of us Interns in Microsoft.

Liam is a driven, geninue and bright person [I accept cash or blank cheque's Liam] who has a great ability to get you excited about something - his talk will definately be one to watch! I also found this photo of him!

Imagine Cup

If there ever was something for students to be excited about, its the ImagineCup. The ImagineCup is the olympics of computer science students around the world, a chance to show off your talents on an international stage and represent your country!

http://www.bebo.com/ImagineCup

http://www.imaginecup.ie

"Thousands of students from all over the world have competed in the Imagine Cup. Beyond the numbers, it is the power of the ideas, the energy, and the enthusiasm of the competitors that make the Imagine Cup the world’s largest and most inclusive student technology competition. The Imagine Cup challenges students to imagine a better world enabled by their own genius, creativity and energy, and provides opportunities for participation in the future of technology, software and computing. Teams develop innovative projects that offer practical applicability and present real-world solutions to real-world problems.

One world. Unlimited possibilities.

Let’s face it — the world needs help. The kind of help that happens when you take the top young minds from around the globe and turn them loose on solving the world’s toughest problems. That’s what the Imagine Cup is all about. This is your chance to innovate and create, show the world what you’ve got, and win some serious prizes. Simply put, it’s your chance to use the power of technology to change the world—and have some fun while you’re at it.

You win. We all win.

Imagine Cup contestants have the chance to give their ideas exposure, make critical contacts, and feel a true sense of friendship with people around the world. Want more? Well, if you make it to the worldwide finals, you’ll also score an all-expense paid trip to Seoul, Korea, and a shot at some great cash prizes: $8, 000 for winning one of eight invitationals or even $25, 000 for winning the Software Design invitational. Help the world and win money? It doesn’t get any better than that.

What does education mean to you?

The theme of this year’s Imagine Cup is "Imagine a world where technology enables a better education for all." We invite you to take on the challenge of using technology to improve education around the world. For some this may mean ensuring equal access to education around the world. For others it may mean the next great breakthrough in science, medicine or even art. Anyway you look at it, you get to decide how technology can help solve this problem for yourself, your country, and yeah…even the planet.

Nine ways to step up to the challenge.

The Imagine Cup started four years ago, and already more than 100, 000 students from over 100 countries and regions have competed. This year, more students than ever will be looking for victory in the nine competitions set up under three main categories, each reflecting this year’s theme. To learn about the different competition categories check out www.imaginecup.ie"

Well technically our last day in Teched was a bit slow largely down to us 'networking' until the early hours of the morning. We had a fantastic night with the Ireland guys, as well as some real amazing guys from Redmond that we had met on monday. Early hours early hours...

We did take the opportunity to go see a bit of Barca, Kieran has some great photos and I've got a few myself which I'll upload and tag.

So writing this on our last night of our amazing TechEd trip I'd like to thank Microsoft for giving us an awesome opportunity to come out here, representing Ireland. Don't worry - we were the last to leave the bar the last 3 nights running - now thats how you represent Ireland =)

Mike signing off from the amazing city of Barcelona!

So yesterday we meet up with the other student partners from around the world, which was very cool. I didn't even realise just how big the program is, with 1600 student partners around the world - and that number is growing. We had alot of cool speakers, and a nice Q&A session. Not alot I can talk about tho ;)

 So one of the things we talked about was the Mix on Campus events, which I can now announce is happening in Queens on the 28th of November - I expect you all to come ;) - will include silverlight, xna, robitics studio and the ImagineCup. We talked about a BuzzTour, which should happen in the new year to include popfly, visualstudio and sql server.

 We headed out with the partners then later on for bowling and pool, for a change I was actually decent at pool, awful at bowling still tho. Met a load of Russians (Like 7!!), 2 Dutch, 2 Belgians, a swede ... so on and so forth.

 I can confirm now too the hiltons cocktail selection is awesome =)

One day gone already, boy where does it go!

So we only really made it to the keynote and a hand's on tutorial before spending a good 2 hours looking for our hotel, then another hour getting back to the conference centre, but there was some good bits in the keynote.

Microsoft will release VisualStudio 2008 to MSDN (should probaly include MSDNAA) at the end of this month, a good 3 months before its RTR. If you are looking to run some Javascript projects, or update a few of your existing applications to .net 3.0 then its really worth picking this up as quickly as possible. The beta 2 release was very stable, so it can only get better.

They also demo'ed some new extensibility for VisualStudio, that will allow 3rd party companies to deploy modules to visualstudio, such as the already developed World of Warcraft mod editor. Which was surprisingly well intregrated and included things you would expect from visualstudio like full Intellisense and libarys.

They also talked a bit more popfly, and showed the new popfly explorer for visualstudio.

What would you think of free .net hosting for students? With MS SQL 2005, ISS 7.0, AJAX, Project Server & Sharepoint? At no cost?

 That is what I would like to offer and with the help of Microsoft, I think we can. The benefits would be outstanding to any student developer who wants to get a taste for .net and .net with other Microsoft Technolgies.

 If you would like to see this happen then please leave a comment with something supportive and I'll compile them into my submission with Microsoft.

Thanks,

Mike

Clare Dillon has announced the join microsoft europe page with some great videos from the team of what its like to work in Microsoft.

 You can find the video's here:

http://www.joinmicrosofteurope.com

 It's proof that Microsoft is taking Ireland seriousily as a development base!