It has certainly been a busy few months for MVPs in Japan.
The Microsoft tech experts have been out in full force to support Microsoft Japan’s flagship event for developers, de:code, and bring to life supplemental events which further engage the community.
This year’s digital instalment of the annual conference consisted of 23,000 registrants, 100 on-demand technical sessions, and keynote sessions including a special message from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Additionally, the early summer conference saw plenty of support from Japanese MVPs. Six MVPs cooperated in the event as session speakers based on their deep knowledge of cutting-edge technologies like Azure Static Web Apps, Azure Sphere, and Power Platform. Meanwhile, 17 MVPs voluntarily joined as MVP Personal Sponsors to provide original sample code and tools to help conference participants better understand the session content.
AI MVP Yoshitaka Seo took part in the conference as both a personal sponsor and session speaker. The AI expert says the event’s liberating digital format enabled speakers like him to share their knowledge with as many participants as possible. “This experience gives me a hint for creating the appropriate content both for in-person and digital events in the future since this kind of hybrid format will be standard in the new normal,” Yoshitaka says.
Windows Development MVP and conference personal sponsor Atomu Hidaka has been cooperating in this event since 2014 and says keeping others up-to-date with the latest technical updates is one of his “joys and missions” as an MVP.
Importantly, the conference was supported by an additional online community event series organized by Japanese MVPs, de:code Summer Fest. This online series shared recommendations of must-watch de:code sessions and community stories to more than 2,000 developers.
The four YouTube Live events from June to August sought to support the main conference with rich community-led content and fun learning experiences. For example, 26 speakers delivered 26 community-to-community sessions - with expertise from 14 MVPs and 12 Community Leaders - covering Azure, AI, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Mixed Reality, and Developer Technologies. The de:code Summer Fest Committee was instrumental in developing the series to best appeal to attendees.
One of community core organizers and Azure MVP Kazumi Ohira says activating the tech community is important for the growth of all developers. One clear event highlight, Kazumi says, was the exciting developer experience offered through a live debugging of MS Tech Quiz. This enabled attendees to follow along with the workflow of event organizers as they investigated the issue and uncovered the solution to their own bug.
“We gained valuable experience during the event since I forgot to adjust our SignalR plan and debugged it live. Coincidentally, we were able to bring the quick response of our community leaders and the resourcefulness of Azure to the live event, and I hope we were able to deliver an interesting experience for attendees as well,” Kazumi says.
MVP Speaker and MS Quiz live debugger at de:code Summer Fest Tatsuro Shibamura says he enjoyed being able to show his skills in front of a virtual audience. “It was truly impressive in my community career that I shared my technical knowledge together with the famous Azure MVP/RD!” The feeling was mutual for Regional Director and Azure MVP Keiji Kamebuchi. “Even troubles that happened during the live event were enjoyable as we successfully demonstrated how to solve them by ourselves in the event,” he says.
Meanwhile, fellow community core organizer and Azure MVP Kazuyuki Miyake says he “fully enjoyed the fruitful online discussions with various Azure specialists who have different technical expertise.” Fellow community core organizers included Biz Apps MVP Ryota Nakamura and Windows Development MVP Shingo Mori.
For more on the dual events, check out their websites de:code and de:code Summer Fest.
