Global Azure 2023 Led by Microsoft MVPs Around the World

Global Azure is the annual global event where communities around the world organize local hybrid events and live streams around a wide range of Microsoft Azure topics…AI, cloud native development, infrastructure, hybrid and so on… all led by community leaders (Microsoft MVPs, Regional Directors, Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors, and other local community speakers). This year’s event was held on May 11-13 as the Global Azure 2023 and offered learning and networking opportunities around the world. In total, 483 speakers conducted 445 sessions at more than 100 events in 6 continents!

 

 

 

In this post, we feature three local Global Azure events in Czech Republic, Canada, and China, and share what attendees and organizers learned. We also interview two community leaders whom helped organize this year’s event as they share their insights into this year’s Global Azure!

 

 

Czech Republic – Global Azure Prague 2023

The Community Program Manager in Czech Republic, Martin Tatar, co-hosted the local Global Azure event in Prague partnering with the local Windows User Group.

 

8 MVPs, 2 Microsoft employees, 2 Microsoft partners, and 1 Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador speakers delivered 12 sessions for 120 attendees in this 2-track event. Attendees were excited about learning about the latest information about Microsoft Azure such as automation and integration in Azure, advanced Functions in Azure Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Managed Instance, Bicep, and cybersecurity.

 

The local Microsoft office and the User Group catered for the attendees. Attendees received their swag and enjoyed socializing with other attendees in the event space. Witnessing their enthusiasm, Martin learned the community are keen to continue meeting in person. However, this event provided learning opportunities not only for in-person attendees, but also for many others, including those who watched the online streaming and those who were unable to attend the day of the event by providing recordings of the sessions. This hybrid format successfully reached a wide range of audience and helped various Azure users.

 

Martin summarizes this event, “I would like to extend a large thank you to the Czech MVP community for putting on such an engaging event and for continually bringing the latest and greatest tech content to the local Czech community. Another thank you goes to the local MS Czech subsidiary for supporting our event with catering and swag. These types of events are truly invaluable when it comes to upskilling and learning. Hope to see this trend continue.”

 

 

Canada – Global Azure Bootcamp 2023, Toronto Edition

Azure MVP in Canada, Ehsan Eskandari, hosted the Global Azure event in Toronto. Multiple local MVPs and local tech community presented 17 sessions covering different areas from AI, DevOps, Serverless, Data Platform, and Power Platform.

 

According to Ehsan, the most exciting topics were AI and Data Platform, “On these two topics, I got lots of positive feedback in email and in person, and in general, the fact that we had 145 attendees during the day is another reason. Some also asked for a workshop on these topics for future user group meetups.”

 

Building partnership with others is an important part of a successful event. Ehsan shares his learning, “It is better to engage more with Microsoft Partners and have them as another support pillar for these community events. Their sponsorship can be extended to sharing their successful implementation presented by their technical leaders with the community.”

 

Regarding partnership, he also mentions his partners who made a great collaboration for this Global Azure event. “I would like to thanks Microsoft Canada for all the support, and also Many thanks to Bruno Capuano Alixia Blanc Ravi Yadav Sam Truswell from Microsoft for the support and our community leads Luca Gobbi David Rodela Chris Coulson Jiyun (Lyla) Won”

 

 

China – Global Azure BootCamp 2023 Shanghai

When we asked one of the organizers what the most popular topic among attendees in this event was, he replied, "That's a tough question to answer because all of our sessions are related to AI." While people around the world are becoming more and more enthusiastic about the latest AI technology, MVPs got together at Microsoft Reactor Shanghai and hosted the local Global Azure event focusing on AI.

 

According to Azure MVP Edi Wang, attendees were new to Azure or AI and expressed a keen interest in learning the underlying principles and observing demos of AI in action. “Attendees were particularly interested in exploring ways to integrate AI capabilities into their respective industries. Of course, they are also eager to know how to quickly implement web services that can access Azure OpenAI Service in the Azure cloud, as well as the technical logic behind these services,” Edi adds.

 

Although he has still been on his way to explore the world of AI like many of attendees, his technical knowledge as an Azure community leader helped attendees to understand Azure services that could be leveraged to deploy effective AI solutions. Besides, interaction with professionals from various industries gave him valuable insights about how users leverage Azure in different sectors. He says, “It enables me to provide even more comprehensive feedback to the Product Group in Microsoft.”

 

One of the MVPs we featured our previous blog post in March (What Community Activity Means to Microsoft MVPs), IoT MVP Jiong Shi, joined this event as a co-organizer. His community leadership made this event successful as he describes, “the event provides a relaxed and enjoyable environment for technology enthusiasts to come together and engage in discussions about Microsoft technologies.”

 

Jiong talked about the expedited development of device-oriented applications using Azure OpenAI Service. He presented its basic information and the design principles for the ChatGPT-based robotics and demonstrated the application of the drone-based prompt engineering. He is confident that he shared a new perspective of AI usage, “Attendees found the capability to generate device-oriented code based on user prompts fascinating, showcasing the promising future of Azure OpenAI services in the field of robotics.”

 

Business Applications MVP Fenghui Wang shared technical information from her point of view of an IT professional. She focuses on using AI in the modern workplace and shared exciting updates of relevant innovating services, such as Microsoft 365 Copilot. “Microsoft 365 Copilot serves as a collaboration tool, assisting users in improving communication and collaboration methods as well as better managing large amounts of data and customer information.” Moreover, she shared how to build the Azure OpenAI Service-based app for Microsoft Teams.

She summarizes her learnings in this event, “We firmly believe that Azure OpenAI will change the way people interact with each other and applications. In addition to the Microsoft 365 Copilot plugin, we have also opened the door for Teams users to build customized smart session application experiences.”

 

AI and Azure MVP Hao Hu, who delivered a session about Azure API Management, says, “Nothing is better than studying together with MVPs and community attendees.” His community engagement empowers attendees to do more and motivates himself to learn the latest technical information. “I strongly recommend my community members to complete my original Microsoft Learn Collection of Microsoft Azure learning paths. They provide valuable guidance and resources for individuals looking to enhance their knowledge and skills in Azure.”

He also mentions another supporter in this local event, Wenwei Lin. Wenwei is a Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador in China who shared community-building experience, and MVPs in this event discussed how they support student community and further collaboration. Community should be the place where anyone can learn from each other regardless of age, so this event provided an inclusive experience to attendees from the view of diverse organizers.

 

 

Global Azure Admin Team - Rik Hepworth, Microsoft Azure MVP / Microsoft Regional Director in United Kingdom

The number of communities involved in this year's event reached 105, double the number of last year’s Global Azure. Rik says, “It is a great indication of bounce-back in post pandemic that more communities from more countries represented this year than last year, and it was a big shift back to in-person or hybrid format.”

 

Another highlight is new collaborations with Microsoft Reactor and Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors (MLSA). Various Microsoft Reactors supported local organizers, such as providing event venues and streaming the events on Microsoft Reactor YouTube channel. Besides, ten or more MLSA-led Global Azure events were organized in the world to deliver important updates to students. “We would also like to give a shout-out to the Student Ambassadors – hopefully, the MVPs of tomorrow. We have loved their enthusiasm and were lucky to have a group join the organizing team where they helped run our social media and blog throughout the event,” Rik says.

 

Global Azure is by and for the community. All the events worldwide are organized by Azure community leaders and many of them are MVPs themselves. Not only organizers and speakers, but the Global Azure Admin Team is also made up of MVPs and Regional Directors. “Global Azure is one giant MVP collaboration, and arguably, given our size and scope, the largest MVP collaboration! Once a year, every year, MVPs from a range of award categories put in time and effort to make our event a great success, and importantly, to give something back to the community and help others grow – truly the founding spirit of the MVP Program!”

 

 

Global Azure Admin Team - Magnus Mårtensson, Microsoft Azure MVP / Microsoft Regional Director in Sweden

Like Rik, Magnus is also one of the Global Azure Admin Team members and an Azure MVP since 2012 when Microsoft Azure was called Windows Azure. “Global Azure is by community for community. All of the local leaders that run the communities and find sponsors, and host events, many of whom are MVPs, are absolutely amazing. It is due to them alone that learning about Azure becomes passion – becomes a way of life!”

 

He tells us about the best outcome of working with Microsoft MVPs for making Global Azure success. “We love working with our extended family of MVPs. Many of these people are folks we have known since the beginning or Azure. MVPs are the shining beacons of community power, and it is with their heart and focus on community and shared knowledge and learning that there is such a powerful force for companionship, friendship, and tech enthusiasm for Azure.”

 

Magnus saw over 100 enthusiastic communities succeeding in their events this time and already started looking toward the future. “Those numbers are down compared to just before the pandemic in 2019. We are determined to work again toward raising our numbers in the years to come. The goal of course is to give every community and their leaders the opportunity to be part of our massive global event.”

 

 

If you are new to the technical community, you do not need to wait until the next Global Azure in 2024. There are a lot of community-led events all over the world you can join. Find your favorite in-person and/or virtual event, learn together, and grow together.

 

Visit Global Azure website to learn more about this global community event. You can read more stories on its Blog page!