At Microsoft TechEd India 2009, we spoke with Sreejumon KP, an MVP from Kerela and President of Kerala – Microsoft User Group (K-MUG) and Binoy, Vice-President, K-MUG about the user group’s academic initiatives.
Download the video (192 MB)
K-MUG has recently organized a Scholarship Program for students to enhance their skill-set. K-MUG conducts qualifying exam and students get an opportunity to get the free training if they qualify. Nearly 10,000 students appeared for the qualifying exam in the first batch of the unique intiative. More details here.
Selvaraj Kaliyan, an MVP from Bangalore, and the User Group Lead for Bangalore IT Pro has been awarded the Top of the Mark - Volunteer Award, in a programme conducted by The Network Professional Association.
The Network Professional Association® (NPA), in conjunction with Interop, Network Computing, Culminis, and Cisco Press, recently announced the NPA's eighth annual Awards for Professionalism program, which honors individuals for their outstanding achievements as professionals within the network computing industry. Awards for Professionalism winners demonstrate the best balance of professional responsibilities including technical competency, ethics and a proper professional, education and industry credentials, community and industry contributions, leadership, professional affiliation.
Pinal Dave, a SQL Server MVP from Gujarat, was a speaker at Unconference @ Microsoft TechEd India 2009 held at Hyderabad. He had a unique giveaway to the attendees of his Unconference session – A SQL Server Cheat Sheet.
This useful one-page sheet has been prepared in keeping with the needs of all developers. Designed by a professional designer and printed on a great-looking glossy paper, this is a must pin-up for your workstations.
However, Pinal was gracious enough to make this useful resource available to the community at large. You can now download the cheat sheet as a PDF here, and print your own copy.
We had a chance to speak to Geetesh Bajaj, a PowerPoint MVP from Secunderabad, India at Microsoft TechEd India 2009. He talks about the subtle nuances of Microsoft Office PowerPoint, the ecosystem around it, and the community he nurtures.
Download the video (43 MB)
Geetsh owns Indezine, a hugely popular PowerPoint community portal and also Scrapbook Presentations.
Rahul Nathan, an MVP, together with an NGO - Positive Actions Foundation and the State government, launched a User Group in for technology enthusiasts in Mandya and Mysore region of Karnataka - MY-TUG (MandYa/MYsore Technology User Group), with the inaugural offline event - Power of 7... Windows 7 – on May 23, 2009. Other MVPs, Vijay Raj and Anand Khanse, have also supported the initiative.
At the event, Rahul took a session on Windows 7 demoing new features and innovations in the upcoming Windows version. The event had 33 attendees. You can find the photos of the event here.
Encouraged by the interest and the enthusiasm, the group is planning to host a grand event in Mysore on June 27, 2009 with specific focus on Microsoft Technologies for both developer and IT Pro audience.
All the User Group leaders from across India, including several MVPs, met at the UG Leaders meet organized by User Groups Support Services (UGSS), Microsoft at the event. Manish Agarwal, Head, Marketing (DPE), Microsoft addressed the leads on the focus for FY10 and listened to feedback.
Sanjay Shetty, UGSS-APAC Lead along with MVPs Ashwin Kini, Jacob Sebastin, and Kashinath TR as leads of community support organizations, Culminis, PASS, and INETA, shared plans for upcoming events.
You can download a pocket guide and directory to Microsoft communities in India (as PDF) which was given away to community members at TechEd, and also listen to Sanjay’s introduction to community support infrastructure (as MP3, with Abhishek Baxi) here.
Post the UG Leaders Meet, UGSS hosted a community evening, a casual party attended by Microsoft folks and UG members. Photos of the evening are here.
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Product teams from Microsoft India Development Center, Hyderabad hosted two interactions with MVPs – Office Mobile/Sharepoint and SQL Server.
Each session was attended by MVPs in the concerned expertise and the teams listened to broad feedback over all domains of the product. Several MVPs considered this rare opportunity as the best activity of the TechEd, and both the IDC folks and MVPs requested for more similar engagements.
More photos of the SQL Server IDC interaction are here.
Attend Webcasts by experts to get the maximum benefit out of Microsoft Office for free. Things you didn't know about Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project revealed in a series of webinars by productivity guru Dr Nitin Paranjape, and MaxOffice Senior Consultant Manmeet Choudhari who have been acknowledge as MVPs for the Office system and MS Project respectively.
Webcast scheduled for every Wednesday from 11:30 hrs to 13:00 hrs (UTC +5:30):
06 May 10 ways to create a successful presentation in PowerPoint Register
13 May Why you should not manage projects in Excel (instead use Project)? Register
20 May Top 10 features you must use in Project Register
27 May Managing multiple projects using Project server Register
03 Jun Top 10 time and task management methods in Outlook Register
Visit Microsoft's webcasts page here www.microsoft.com/india/webcasts to register and to know more about the events.
While the masses lined up for sessions in different tracks at the Microsoft India TechEd India 2009, several MVPs attending the event hosted a parallel Unconference at the community lounge which saw earnest response.
Vikram Pendse, Vijay Raj, Pinal Dave, Jacob Sebastian, Arun Balachandran, Chaitra Nagaraj, Nitin Paranjape, Mohd Abdul Muqeet Khan, Satya VVV, and Amit Bansal voluntarily hosted open-for-all sessions throughout the three days of the event. The sessions spanned diverse audience and technologies.
More photos of the unconference sessions and community lounge here.