This month, The MVP Blog is shining a spotlight on some of the MVP community’s developer-focused initiatives around the world.
February saw two of our famous local developer events: Austrian Developer Community Day and Microsoft Developer Night in Japan. Here’s what happened.
The Austrian developer community has been eagerly waiting to meet after the temporary closing of the M365 Developer Bootcamp due to the pandemic.
In February, the local developers finally joined forces again to create an exciting event for the Austrian developer community. By discussing a mix of current topics for Microsoft 365 and Azure developers, the organizers could engage new regional cloud developers and provide experienced developers with unique insights.
The organizers hosted a day filled with 26 sessions with an international lineup of speakers.
Martina Grom, Regional Director in Austria, recalls: “The event was a big success thanks to the commitment of our (MVP) colleagues. My personal highlight was Microsoft Cloud Advocate Laurent Bugnion delivering the keynote!”
The event hosts used a new integrated virtual platform for delivering the sessions. This brought a more unified experience for attendees and speakers. “We look forward to hosting similar hybrid events in the future,” Martina adds.
The Austrian Developer Community Day was held as a virtual event for the very first time. The platform cloudusergroup, developed by Toni Pohl and Martina Grom, supported easy access to each of the online sessions.
Toni Pohl, Office Development MVP in Austria, told us: “Special thanks to our MVP colleague and RD Rainer Stropek for supporting us. The goal was to try out the new platform with this event to give the participants easy access to the virtual event – and it worked just fine. Next time we will also organize more supporters for the preparation and moderation.”
Co-organizer and moderator Martin Ullrich, Developer Technologies MVP in Austria, summarizes rightfully: “I’m always happy to work with our local community, help bring people together, and facilitate self-improvement through knowledge-sharing get-togethers.”
The session recordings are available on the cloudusergroup YouTube channel.
Meanwhile, in Japan, Microsoft Developer Night was designed as a special occasion for developers to come together and cover a wide range of Microsoft’s new developer technologies, such as Visual Studio, .NET, web development, Azure/AI, IoT, and Mixed Reality.
Akihiro Oyamada, Developer Technologies MVP in Japan, shared that the event was a unique opportunity for local developers to discuss Microsoft innovations. “I have been focusing on web development for years, so I was eager to join the opportunities and share the information about the end of the Internet Explorer in 2022. I really wanted to explain what impact this has on the developers.”
The event was well-received on social media networks, with developers worldwide discussing the sessions and the presented new technologies at the conference on Twitter.
“I was happy to see tweets like: ‘I would like to use Durable Functions’ from the attendees after my session on Durable Functions,” reports Noriyuki Takei, Azure MVP. At the Microsoft Developer Night, Noriyuki explained to the audience how serverless is moving into a new stage. “I enjoyed this live event experience since I felt attendees’ passion in real-time compared to the one-way activities, such as blogging and technical video.”
One of the event's most-popular highlights put into light the technologies of Mixed Reality and the new Azure Digital Twins.
Takahiro Miyaura, Windows Development MVP, hosted the session about Digital Twins. “In this event, MVPs and engineers at Microsoft introduced a wide range of technologies, including the relevant technical knowledge. Other MVP speakers featured IoT and Edge AI, which can also work with Digital Twins. I am sure everyone learned deeper technical information.”
For more on Microsoft Japan’s local development community, check out the YouTube video.