News from the Microsoft Innovation Centers

A call to all startups working at or with the MIC's! Applications are now open for the Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure - 2013

2012-12-21T00:40:29Z

We are opening applications for the second class of the Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure. The second class will begin on April 1,^,2013 and conclude with Demo Day on June 26, 2013. We'd love to see startups coming out of the MIC's apply to this program!

If you are currently working at a startup or considering founding your own company, please apply here: http://www.accelerato.rs/microsoft/apply Our team will be accepting applications through February 1, 2013. Want to learn more about Microsoft's Accelerator or the application process? Here's some more info: http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/accelerator/

Lastly, if you are interested in seeing all of the amazing startups in our current accelerator, you can learn more about them by visiting this page: http://www.meetwindowsazure.com/Startups

For more info:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2012/12/19/applications-are-now-open-for-the-microsoft-accelerator-for-windows-azure-2013.aspx

VIDEO - 2012: A Year in Review for MIC Belgium

2012-12-21T00:34:20Z

If there is one thing you check out today, make it this! A video of MIC Belgium's 2012 year in review! Celebrating 3 years of activity, Kinect Camp, panels on how to finance your startup, experienced investors coming to speak, Startup Weekend, Bootcamps, intern programs - SO AWESOME!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iYZz737wb-c

Microsoft Innovation Centers (MICs) introduced to boost student technology expertise across India

2012-12-05T20:13:58Z

First wave of 14 MICs announced, with over 100 centers to be launched over the next two years to drive employability, innovation, and entrepreneurship

Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd. today announced the launch of 14 Microsoft Innovation Centers (MICs) in India, signing MoUs with leading academic institutions across four states. As part of the worldwide program, that currently has 75 MICs, Microsoft aims to launch a total of 100 MICs in India in the next two years. These MICs will impact over 500,000 students, certifying 100,000 students on Microsoft technologies. The program will also drive innovation and help build a product-based software economy by supporting product development, and over 500 startups.

The MICs will act as innovation hubs at select colleges and technology institutes, providing incubation and expert hands-on support on Microsoft technology innovation, research, and software solutions, aiming to create a pool of student technology experts across India.

Each MIC will function as a hub for five other neighboring colleges and will operate in a hub-spoke model driving employability, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the academic ecosystem around it. The 14 cities that will host the first MICs, opening this week will be Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Rajahmundry, Khammam, Bapatla, Guntur and Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, Raipur in Chhattisgarh, Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Trichy, Vellore, Coimbatore, Madurai and Salem in Tamil Nadu.

Commenting on the launch of MICs in India, Joseph Landes, General Manager, DPE, Microsoft India, said, "The Microsoft Innovation Centers are designed to offer a unique environment conducive for student entrepreneurship. As knowledge and innovation become primary catalysts for economic growth in India, the Microsoft Innovation Centers can play a vital role in generating powerful new ideas through training, education and knowledge transfer."

The MIC program will act as the key driver of Microsoft’s vision for developing new talent in India at the student level. Budding developers will be encouraged to innovate across key priority technology focus areas that are driving growth and change for the economy, namely: Mobility (Windows Phone), Cloud (Windows Azure), Kinect, Accessibility, Healthcare and a wider ambit for solving problems with an India focus.

Expressing his vision for MICs at his institution, Dr. G. Viswanathan, Founder & Chancellor, VIT University, Vellore, said, "Innovation is an intrinsic part of the philosophy we live here at VIT University, which was established with the aim of providing quality higher education on par with international standards. Our students have been actively involved in the Imagine Cup - another great program from Microsoft that fosters innovation among students to address key global challenges. Being a part of the first group of the Microsoft Innovation Center (MICs) in India, we see VIT becoming a center for applied technology solutions, digital literacy and a creator of socio-economic change in the community and the economy. The technology areas that we will focus on include Cloud, Mobile, and other core technologies, will allow us to provide a holistic skill roadmap for all our students, whether they want to pursue a career in technology, academics or business.

The MIC announcement comes days after the India launch of Microsoft’s new global philanthropy initiative, YouthSpark – aimed at addressing the opportunity divide faced by the young people of the world. In particular, MICs will play a crucial role in deepening the relationship between academia and industry, enhancing at a very basic level, employability and education, reducing the digital divide, support for innovation and driving sustainable socio-economic impact.

Winsenga app wins $50,000 Microsoft Imagine Cup Grant, MIC Uganda plays key role

2012-12-05T19:47:08Z

The Microsoft Innovation Center in Uganda has played a key role in supporting and mentoring the team behind the Winsenga app, winner of the $50,000 Microsoft Imagine Cup Grant.

The application performs ultrasounds on pregnant women and detects problems such as ectopic pregnancies and abnormal heartbeats. The team of three are all students at the College of Computing and Information Sciences at Makerere University, and as winners of this grant, Microsoft will now work to connect this team with Microsoft's vast network of investors, NGO partners and business partners.

“We are grateful to Microsoft for giving these youth an opportunity to innovate and help the mothers around the world. This grant shows that the youth have the power to change our lives and we shall continue to partner with organizations that are willing to explore their potential,” said Maria Muzaaki, the College communication officer.

http://cis.mak.ac.ug/cocis-news/193-winsenga-wins-50000-microsoft-imagine-cup-grant.html

Members of the MIC Korea pay a visit to Silicon Valley

2012-12-04T02:49:44Z

The MIC Korea does an incredible amount to support the local startup ecosystem. One exciting project this MIC has been working on involves a partnership with the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (Kotra). This partnership, called the "Smart Growth Program," incubates Korean startups. MIC Korea has provided training programs, mentoring and access to the BizSpark program and other global programs. In addition, MIC Korea and Microsoft have offered other forms of support to these startups, including hosting them on a trip to Silicon Valley! Here are some pictures from their trip to Microsoft's Silicon Valley campus from this past November - a great trip for everyone involved!

Jacob Walles, the U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia, pays a visit to MIC Tunisia for their Microsoft Annual Startup Program Launch

2012-11-28T03:19:42Z

On November 26, Ambassador Walles visited the Microsoft Innovation Center in Tunisia for their annual Startup Program Launch.

Here's his speech from the event:

Thank you Mohamed Bridaa for welcoming us here today. It is
a pleasure to be here at Microsoft’s annual “Startup Program.” I would also
like to welcome the representatives from our ten startup companies and our other
distinguished guests.

As Tunisia transitions towards democracy, economic
development remains a priority to order to respond to the Tunisian people’s
demand for more jobs and better employment opportunities. The United States is
proud to support efforts to spur business investment, expand employment, and
further integrate Tunisia into the world marketplace. With this in mind, the
U.S. Embassy has made partnering on entrepreneurship and Small and Medium
Enterprise development a key priority for our economic assistance programs.

The United States Government is especially pleased to partner
with the Microsoft Innovation Center for the 2012-2013 edition of its annual
“Startup Program.” We believe this program will deliver essential skills to a
new generation of startup companies, skills that will create meaningful and
well-paying jobs for Tunisians across the country. The private sector and civil
society have an important role to play as well, and we applaud the program’s
other partners for stepping up and contributing to this effort.

We are confident that the Microsoft Innovation Center will
deliver, yet again, another impressive program of training on management,
business development, entrepreneurship, software, and internet applications. We
are certain the startup companies that will be selected to participate in this
year’s program will benefit greatly from the knowledge and skills they will
acquire.

In a similar vein, training and mentorship must be partnered
with foreign direct investment and access to capital if promising enterprises
are to be fully successful. To that end, the United States has been pursuing a
number of programs intended to stimulate these areas so we can achieve our
shared objectives of economic growth and job creation.

Earlier this year, the United States provided a $100 million
cash transfer to the government Tunisia for short-term fiscal relief. These
funds were to pay-off debts to the World Bank and African Development Bank and
thereby free up money for other priority programs. We also provided a sovereign
loan guarantee to Tunisia to borrow $485 million on international capital
markets.

Our Overseas Private Investment Corporation has a particular
interest in fostering franchises and small and medium sized enterprises. We
recently finalized a $50 million credit guarantee facility to support investors
looking to stake their money on the future of the Tunisian economy.

Our partnership with the Microsoft Innovation Center, in
addition to our other assistance programs, represents our commitment to the
people of Tunisia. It is a measure of our belief in what Tunisia has achieved
since January 2011, and of our belief that Tunisia will continue to progress in
the months and years ahead to create a democratic and prosperous country.

In closing, I would like to congratulate the representatives
of the ten startup companies from the 2011-2012 program who are with us today
and to wish you continued success. To the Microsoft Innovation Center, we thank
you for providing this important service to the Tunisian private sector. And to
all of you, we offer our admiration for your ongoing efforts to deliver on the
promises of the Tunisian revolution.

Fore more info, check out: http://tunisia.usembassy.gov/ambassadors-remarks-at-the-microsoft-annual-startup-program-launch.html

Brand New Microsoft Innovation Center Launches in Lahore Pakistan

2012-11-28T02:30:00Z

We are pleased to announce a brand new Microsoft Innovation
Center in Lahore, Pakistan. The Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC) in Lahore
officially launched on November 21, 2012, by the Microsoft Pakistan team, in
collaboration with Government of Punjab. This specific MIC has been established
with the aim of facilitating the local IT-based economy via development of
skills and talent showcasing and is being supported by the Punjab Information
Technology Board (PITB).

The MIC Lahore will have different programs geared towards developing diverse segments of the
knowledge-based economy. The Skills Development program focuses on
intellectual capital and polishes the IT-skills of people through technical and
business courses for local ICT companies. It also provides structured
employment programs for students. The second program, the Partnership
Accelerator, focuses on enabling successful partnerships by connecting
people and organizations in the innovation ecosystem. The local and regional
industrial alliances are further cultivated in partnership with Microsoft to
support the growth of software ‘industry clusters’ and software quality
assurance programs.

Another program is the Innovation Accelerator. This program will emphasize the
enhancement of local technical capacity through innovative engagements. This
includes labs, prototype development, testing for ISVs, Startups, Partners,
Students and Entrepreneurs.

Sayed Hashish, General Manager, Microsoft North Africa, Eastern Mediterranean and Pakistan
noted, “Through our collaboration with the government of Punjab, we are now
providing access to world-class resources for software developers, IT
professionals, students, academics and entrepreneurs in Pakistan. Tuned to
local and regional needs, MIC in Lahore will fuel the development of local
software industries in Pakistan and fill young technology users with enthusiasm
to make them ready to address the challenges ahead.”

The Chief Minister of Punjab, Mian Muhammad Shahbaz
Sharif, attended the launch, in addition to Dr. Umar Saif, the Chairman of
the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and Saima Sheikh, the Joint
Director E-Government of the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB).
Dr. Ijaz Munir, Secretary Higher Education Department for the Government of
Punjab was also there, in addition to Microsoft’s Ali Faramawy,
Corporate Vice President, Microsoft MEA, Sayed Hashish General Manager,
Microsoft NEPA and Harb Bou-Harb, Public Sector Lead, Microsoft NEPA.

MIC Productivity in Spain to host upcoming event on the BizSpark Plus Program and how to develop cloud applications on Windows Azure

2012-11-09T22:29:25Z

MIC Productivity, based in Spain, is set to hold a workshop on “Developing
Applications with Windows Azure cloud” on Thursday, November 22. This will be the
fourth session they’ve hosted, and this session will include participation from
trentia (www.trentia.es) and ValidatedId (www.validatedid.com).

About the session:
The implementation of cloud solutions in organizations includes the use of infrastructure
and solutions online by business professionals, and the possible development and migration of applications and
corporate programs.

That's why the session is intended to review and present case studies of companies
that have developed solutions and applications in the cloud for us to share
amongst one another. We will be able to answer questions like:

What are the alternatives for solving
this type of challenge?
What difficulties are there?
How different is developing cloud applications versus developing
other types of applications?

The schedule can be found below:

8:30-9:00, Coffee and networking
9:00 to 9:20, Introduction and Overview Microsoft BizSpark Plus program to support startups , by
the MIC Productivity
9:20 to 10:00, Practical experiences with Windows Azure development, by Ruben
Claramunt (trentia consulting) and Ivan Basart (ValidatedId)
10:00 to 10:30 Questions and Follow-up

If you are interested in attending, you please let the MIC Productivity Center
know at info@micproductivity.com

More info on Microsoft Innovation Center Productivity can be found here:

http://www.micproductivity.com/en/Pages/default.aspx

MIC Manager: Xavier Llobera, xllobera@micproductivity.com

MIC Productivity Blog: http://micproductivity.wordpress.com/

More info on the BizSpark program, Microsoft program for startups: Bizspark.com

Startups at Treatabit Learn about BizSpark

2012-07-13T10:04:00Z

On July 20th, Mario and Giuseppina of the MIC Torino team presented to over 40 startups at Treatabit, a digital projects incubator and playground for new media entrepreneurs. The event was led in collaboration with I3P, the incubator of Politecnico of Torino and featured presentations on Windows Azure, Windows Phone and Windows 8.

MIC TORINO Projects: μCloud

2012-07-02T08:19:09Z

μCloud is a project to study and to develop an advanced technology platform for innovation in services and processes of support services and maintenance, able to solve the needs of quality / efficiency of assistance, distribution and control products, while keeping service costs limited and proportional to the business. The main need for the project end-user and more in general for many business realities, is a constant and rapid products alignment to the market needs in terms of software, in addition to a good knowledge of the functional status of the machines to perform a remote assistance capable of on-site costs reduction. To handle the needs mentioned, the design chosen for the basic in μCloud is the realization of a flexible embedded system (based on a modular and reconfigurable OS) connection-oriented with a centralized system cloud realized on a Platform as a Service (PaaS) that will be the heart of innovation on which rotates the entire project that will be built and on which will be future developments. As a direct result of the convergence cloud-embedded, play important roles, communication systems and embedded cloud and embedded-embedded. In particular, the paradigms of communication will be studied as a mesh-network systems and vehicle-2-vehicle (V2V), which match well with communications embedded-embedded for example in the field of construction equipment.

MIC TORINO: Project ATLAS

2012-06-25T07:01:00Z

ATLAS (Automatic Translation into Sign Language) (2009- on-going). The project is supported by the Piemonte Region and financed by the program of development of innovative services. The project creates the technological bridge between the cognitive sciences and the most advanced information technologies. It gives the possibility to deaf people to look and understand programs of mass media through automatic translation from the Italian written language into the sign language (LIS) which is visualized a virtual actor created by computer animation drawing means. Microsoft Innovation Center is supporting this project using the Microsoft technologies on mobile devices: Windows Phone 7.

MIC TORINO Project: SIEPI

2012-06-18T11:25:00Z

SIEPI is a project funded by Regione Piemonte in the field of energy saving and lighting efficiency, both in indoor and outdoor environments (e.g. large industrial buildings, roads / highways, tunnels). The experience gained so far by the project consortium in the field of illumination indicates the existence of large areas of intervention for the improvement of energy management at these sites against contained investments. At present the consortium is operating with centralized systems based on devices housed in the electrical distribution cabinets.
The main goal of this project is to improve existing systems with a further development and integration through industrial research and in particular through pre-competitive development. The new SIEPI system will target the rationalization of lighting of new or already existing installations, with new devices, more efficient and easily manageable by operators, in addition to the provision of precise telemetry of electrical networks and other services useful to both businesses and public administrations. The technology developed in the SIEPI project will allow to obtain significant energy savings and efficiency in the usage of traditional gas-discharge lamps (e.g. SAP lamps, JM, fluorescent tubes), which are the most used lamps for large lighting installations, and will introduce also a monitoring and remote control solution with the use of distributed sensors networks and cloud computing (Internet Of Things).

MIC TORINO: Startup Weekend a great success!!!

2012-06-12T10:09:00Z

Startup Weekend in Turin just completed with participation from over 120 attendees (50%business 20% designers and 30% technical folks)+ 25 coaches/mentors +41 extra people attending final pitches + some journalists (RAI, LaStampa,CheFuturo, ) + many bloggers. Over 46 initials ideas were pitched which was narrowed down to 15 teams! The Winning team was Burst, an app that contexualizes news for users. The second place was Intoino a web platform to instrument Intoino hardware and the third place was SpringTime a social platform for people that want to share hobbies. A special prize was for Linked Green an application to help consumers to choose eco sustainable packagings.

Some press

http://www.ninjamarketing.it/2012/06/11/startup-weekend-torino-2012-evento/

http://blog.nicolamattina.it/2012/06/startup-weekend-torino/

http://www3.lastampa.it/torino/sezioni/cronaca/articolo/lstp/457784/

http://www.chefuturo.it/2012/06/startup-weekend-torino-e-social-innovation-camp-milano/

MIC TORINO Project: EnerCloud

2012-06-11T14:10:00Z

EnerCloud (2010 – on-going) is a project co-funded by the local government. It is leaded by MIC and involves: Public Administration, Noverca (Italian Telco Operator), Microsoft Italia and important energy managers. The main focus of EnerCloud is the realization of a system for the optimization of energy consumption of public illumination through an intelligent management of the switching ON/OFF. Moreover the project includes the realization of procedures for the energy consumption analysis. It represents a POC that includes the realization of low cost embedded systems for the energy management and a back office application employing Microsoft Azure cloud solution for the remote management of the devices and the data storage.

MIC TORINO: Labs on Windows Embedded Compact 7 and Windows Embedded Standard 7

2012-06-05T12:25:55Z

In order to estimate technically the platforms of Windows Embedded, with the collaboration of MIC TORINO, next Tuesday will be technical and free practical class labs on:

- Windows Embedded Compact 7

- Windows Embedded Standard 7

The session will be taken by Beppe Platania from Beps Engineering at Microsoft Italy (Peschiera Borromeo)

MIC TORINO will present a scientific paper at ITS Vienna 2012

2012-05-29T14:09:00Z

From 22nd to 26th October 2012, ERTICO - ITS EUROPE, in close co-operation with its counterpart regional organisations and the Host organisation, is organising the 19th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems and Services (ITS) in Vienna, Austria.

The ITS Congresses continue to be of increasing significance globally, while gathering over 300 exhibitors and 8,000 visitors from more than 60 countries worldwide, in the quest to share best practices and build reliable networks.

We are pleased to announce that our paper has the quality and content that is sought for the Congress and it has therefore been accepted as a technical for presentation in a Interactive Session at the Congress and for publication in the CD-ROM Proceedings.

Session Title: INTERACTIVE 2 – Intelligent Infrastructure

Paper Title: Salt Spreaders: From Heavy Machines to Intelligent Systems

MIC TORINO at International Book Fair of Torino

2012-05-14T07:30:00Z

During the International Book Fair of Torino from May 10^th to 14^th at the RAI’s booth will be presented a project in whom MIC TORINO is deeply involved, ATLAS. Atlas is a project supported by the Piemonte Region and financed by the program of development of innovative services. The project creates the technological bridge between the cognitive sciences and the most advanced information technologies. It gives the possibility to deaf people to look and understand programs of mass media through automatic translation from the Italian written language into the sign language (LIS) which is visualized a virtual actor created by computer animation drawing means. Microsoft Innovation Center is supporting this project using the Microsoft technologies on mobile devices: Windows Phone 7. At the booth it is possible to see the application on a LG 900. For more information
visit the website http://www.atlas.polito.it/en/.

MIC TORINO: Seminar on Cloud Computing

2012-05-07T15:17:00Z

MIC TORINO, with Microsoft, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, and the patronage of UNINFO, are organizing a seminar on the topic of innovation, with particular reference to cloud computing and the latest solutions for industry and public administration.

The meeting is an opportunity to deepen on cloud computing opportunities with specialists from Microsoft and for comparison between academia, industry and research centers.

Details about the seminar can be found here: “Standard per il Cloud: stato dell’arte e prospettive”

Microsoft Innovation Center Torino at SPS/IPC/DRIVES, Parma May 22-24

2012-04-30T07:51:00Z

Let us build your industrial embedded project together!

MIC Torino, the Windows Embedded team and their partners will be at SPS Italy on May 22^nd, 23^rd and 24^th at Fiera di Parma.

At the booth, find demonstrations of innovative and intelligent systems on Windows Embedded Compact and Standard platforms, including:

Concrete examples of solutions in Industrial Automation systems
Speech sessions delivered by Windows Embedded team, partners and distributors

MIC Torino, will present two sessions:

Intelligent management of lighting systems

The solution implements the most recent technological paradigms, such as, the use of control systems and remote control (according to the paradigm of "intelligent system") and particular solutions through "cloud computing " and the Windows Azure Platform (according to the model of Software as a Service) and solutions based on embedded technology with Windows Embedded (Windows Embedded Compact 7). The objective is to achieve savings and energy efficiency of lighting systems inside and outdoors, in large industrial complexes, roads and tunnels (ICT for Energy).

Salt-spreading trucks go from “pesante to pensante.”

Thanks to Microsoft Embedded technologies combined with the advanced use of GPS/EGNOS systems, these technologies allow an improved efficiency and an enhanced user experience in the field of winter maintenance. In particular, this project relies on Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3 with an application based on native C++ code and a GUI in Silverlight for Windows Embedded. This is a first step towards the new generation of embedded systems for winter equipment based on the new Windows Embedded Compact 7 and innovative Intelligent Device Management paradigm.

Microsoft Innovation Center Torino: Windows Embedded Workshop “on the road”

2012-04-23T07:45:00Z

Microsoft Innovation Center Torino and Avnet Embedded are partnering with Kontron, BEPS, Interval Zero to introduce a series of Windows® Embedded training programs. All workshops are free of charge.

Windows Embedded Standard 7 – Padova April 4^th and 5^th

This one-day intensive course will show you how, starting from scratch, to create and deploy a Windows Embedded Standard 7 platform, and how to make the most of the system's embedded enabling features.

Interactive hands-on labs are used to introduce the development and deployment tool flow.

A certificate of attendance will be issued to all the attendees.

The course is ideal for those considering Windows Embedded Standard 7 and needing to understand the product in technical detail.

The one day course covers:

The features of Windows Embedded Standard 7
Image creation and customisation
More on Embedded enabling Features
Create a real-time system using RTX from IntervalZero on a Kontron board

Agenda:

9:00 - 9:30	Attendee registration
9:30 - 10:00	Company presentations
10:00 - 10:45	Windows Embedded: Endless Opportunity
10:45 - 11:00	Break
11:00 - 11:45	Introduction to Windows Embedded Standard 7
11:45 - 12:30	Introduction to RTX
12:30 - 13:00	Introduction to POSReady 7
13:00 - 14:00	Lunch
14:00 - 16:30	Hands on Labs: Let’s Build our Real-Time appliance on a Kontron SBC!
14:00 - 14:30	Build with IBW
14:30 - 15:15	Customise with ICE
15:15 - 15:30	Break
15:30 - 16:30	Let’s test RTX
16:30 - 16:45	Q&A

Windows 8 Consumer Preview First Look Clinics at Microsoft Innovation Center Nepal

2012-04-20T18:35:00Z

In this event, you will learn secrets, tips and tricks of Windows 8 and also how it words with Windows 8 Server Beta, featuring demos, presentations and videos.

You'll love Windows 8, whether you are planning to use it in your PC, laptop or tablet or slate. Join the event to be in the know! You will also get a chance to get your DVDs in either 32 bit or 64 bit so that you do not need to download it and you not need to worry about the load shedding. Below are further details about the event:

Some of the features that will be covered in the demos are:

Charms	Swipes and mouse clicks
Start Screen	Sign-In with new methods
Window store and the new apps with live tiles	Metro Design UI
Share and Picker	File Copy
Search Charm	Pin to desktop feature
AppLocker	BitLocker
BranchCache	Connection Manager
Client Hyper-V	DirectAccess
eDrive	Group Policy Management
Hardware Device Management	Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)
Security Auditing	Smart Cards
User-Device Affinity	Volume Activation
Windows Authentication	Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
Windows PowerShell	Windows To Go

Everyone who attends will receive: DVD of Windows / Windows 8 Laptop Skin / Microsoft notebook and Pen / A Booklet on Windows 8 / and a cool tote bag to put it all in! Snacks and refreshment will be available.

Registration Fee: NPR 600 (inclusive tiffin and refreshment)

Date: April 25, 2012, Wednesday

Time: 12:00 -5:30 pm

Location: Nepal Microsoft Innovation Center, New Road

For registration, kindly send mail to mic@micnepal.org.

MIC Jordan hosts Cloud BizSpark Camp - Microsoft Partner Mobisoft discovers the value of the Cloud

2012-04-16T15:47:00Z

Mobisoft is one of the Middle East’s market leaders in developing and implementing enterprise mobile products and solutions. For the past 10 years, Mobisoft continuously supported its clients to accelerate business cycles, increase productivity, reduce operating cost and extend respective infrastructure by integrating systems with enterprise mobile business solutions.

Recently, Mobisoft has concentrated on delivering its mobile solutions as products to customers all over the Middle East region, with the ambition to go beyond the region. This requires a robust and scalable operational environment, that should keep up and running all the time and can grow with company’s expansions to newer customers and markets, without focusing on the current infrastructure and any HW limitations. Additionally there is also a challenge to quickly build and deploy new products to the market. For these reasons Mobisoft started focusing on cloud computing to avoid burdening its own data centers, & our initial direction had been to use an IaaS model and build our SaaS on top of that, but this approach has been changed with Azure.

In February 2012, Mobisoft received an invitation from Microsoft Innovation Center to attend the Cloud Camp to learn and experience Windows Azure and explore its capabilities. Three members from Mobisoft’s team attended the event and explored the platform.

From Mobisoft's perspective:

Through the Cloud Camp, we got free access and valuable support from Microsoft to migrate one of our mobile products to the cloud & we started with our pre-developed application called "Wenak", an Arabic name means "Where are you?" "Wenak" allows mobile users to share their locations within their network using their integrated GPS and wireless network, and at the back end there is a web application for registration, adding of friends and browsing the location data.

Mobisoft spent a few days converting the application from the current data center platform to the Azure environment, and the deployment took just a few minutes. The most important thing is that we could avoid having to access and configure the server which is an inevitable task when using IaaS.

We, at Mobisoft, feel grateful to the Azure; Microsoft team manages, for maintaining and monitoring their servers and this allows Mobisoft to focus on its own applications and services. The new platform gives us a greater exposure and helps us to scale up so that customers from around the world can access our services reliably. Additionally, Mobisoft can experiment with new offering and enhance the customers experience because of the faster time to market and flexible development environment.

MIC Belgium First Kinect camp / a CITY size game :-)

2012-04-16T15:17:00Z

It’s with pleasure we share an experience we did in our MIC in Mons : “A city size Kinect game” (see video here below) developed during our first MIC Belgium Kinect Camp : 1 week, 15 programmers, 2 games developed.

On April 2012, as a part of the Digital Art VIA festival organized in Mons (Belgium), social games demo have been planned in Mons city streets. The target was to present games using the Kinect technology, on the theme of the legend of the Angels of Mons. Fishing Cactus (game development studios, specialized in Kinect Technology, working for UbiSoft for instance), Technocité (ICT and Digital Media Knowledge Center), the VIA Digital Art festival and the MIC Belgium worked closed together to develop, in only one week, two city sized video games. It ended by an outdoor game that took place on Mons’ Grand Place. The aim was to spotlight the talent of the Walloon region and raise awareness of Social Gaming in the city.

To develop the games, The MIC Belgium has organized a one week Microsoft Kinect SDK Camp. The principle was simple: 15 volunteers (10 developers and 5 game designers) who didn’t know each other have been selected based on their CV and talents. They’ve been trained on Kinect SDK and .Net technology during one week, supervised by Fishing Cactus and they developed two of the games that have been presented during the VIA festival.

Besides the social dimension, the project demonstrates the innovation capacity of the MIC in the city that will become in 2015 the European Capital of Culture. Two games were developed and were played and appreciated by the public as you can see in the video below. This is a great achievement for all organizers and developers and we are very proud to be driving this project.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

At M2M forum: Microsoft and the “Intelligent System” Roadmap, Technologies and Case History

2012-04-16T12:58:00Z

Microsoft Innovation Center Torino presents at M2M Forum since 2002, the leading tradeshow dedicated to M2M world on May 3rd Milan

With "Intelligent System" Microsoft identifies an architectural paradigm of IoT that involves the convergence of several technologies used to make the "system". In particular, Microsoft aims to leverage on the convergence between mobile and embedded devices with cloud technology. The aim is to create an ecosystem where both datasources (eg embedded systems) and the centralized infrastructure are managed organically to store, process and service data and to generate value from the data itself. With the use of Windows Embedded and Windows Azure platforms will be presented two case studies with solutions in the domains of the smart energy and smart city.

Torino Startup Weekend!!!

2012-04-10T10:29:00Z

Startup Weekend is an intense 54 hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application which could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend. The weekend brings together people with different skillsets – primarily software developers, graphics designers and business people – to build applications and develop a commercial case around them.

Microsoft Innovation Center Torino, Microsoft Bizspark and I3P (Incubator of Politecnico di Torino) are organizing this second edition of startup weekend in Torino. For more information visit the link: http://torino.startupweekend.org/