Microsoft Virtual TechDays has established itself as a popular online event providing an opportunity to the developer, IT Pro, and designer community to dive deep into the latest offerings from Microsoft. A free, 3-day online event has all the reasons to have all the ardent followers it has.

After the successful culmination of August 2009 edition, Niraj Bhatt, a Connected System Developer MVP from Bangalore, India, has won the Best Presenter Award for his session - .NET service bus : Cloud for communication channel – with a high speaker rating of 8.46. He also won himself a gift certificate worth INR 10,000.

You can view a recording of the session at the event site, and also download the slide-deck here.

Few months back, as part of MVP Certification Hero Campaign in the Asia-Pacific region, MVPs and their communities were enabled to upgrade their skills as MVPs were provided the resources and ability to promote Microsoft Certification to their network and community.

The participating MVPs were given specific code that they could give away to their community members for a Microsoft Exam Discount Voucher. The voucher entailed a 10% discount and a free retake for the exam. In the Asia Pacific region, a total of 3,373 exam vouchers were distributed (638 in India) to MVPs’ communities.

For their participation, the top three MVP participants from India have been recognized as Asia MVP Certification Hero.

• Vijay Raj
• Selvaraj Kaliyan
• Vikram Lakhotia

Congrats guys! Keep this wonderful award trophy next to the MVP Award trophy on your desks or chests :)

Thanks Vijay, for sharing the photo

Bonus: Watch this YouTube video to hear what Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and hiring manager has to say about the best course of action for MCPs in this challenging economy.

Silverlight MVP from Pune, India, Vikram Pendse has created a Windows 7 General Availability Countdown Timer, using, what else, Silverlight :)

(Screenshot, not the actual timer)

Pimp up your blogs/sites with the countdown timer using the following embed code below and hang in there for Windows 7 to come at store near you.

<iframe src=”http://silverlight.services.live.com/invoke/75985/NewWin/iframe.html” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ style=”width:158px; height:200px”></iframe>

The Clubhouse is the official community of Windows Live enthusiasts. who are really passionate about Windows and are willing to share that expertise and experience with others. Some of the best contributions to Clubhouse are featured on their websites, newsletters, and inside their products and services themselves.

Windows Live MVP from Bangalore, India - Vasudev G – has been a charter member and has been involved since beta launch of the Clubhouse. His posts, with over 175k views, have been featured on WindowsLive.com and also as ads within Hotmail.

Last month, Clubhouse celebrated it’s one year anniversary and rolled out the red carpet for their brightest stars with the first-ever Clubhouse Choice Awards. Based on ratings, views, and comments, three nominees in seven categories were put to vote in the community.

Vasudev G won the award for Best Tip or Trick. Here’s the link to the award winning post: Chat in different languages using Windows Live Messenger Translation Bot.