This month, The MVP Blog is shining a spotlight on some of the MVP community’s local initiatives around the world.
Microsoft Build is an annual conference for attendees to come together and discover the latest innovations in code and application development—and gain insights from peers and experts from around the world.
This year, the event hosted a regional spotlight on five different parts of the globe: the UK, France, Germany, LATAM, and Japan.
Around the world, we’ve asked our MVPs to share how each regional “table topics” session went. Here’s what we learned across five different territories.
AI MVP Chris Lloyd Jones ran a session on Green Software Engineering and says he enjoyed how engaged his audience was.
“Together with my co-presenter Darshna, it felt like we shared some new ideas that might have a real impact on technology, and sustainability. Build was frankly, incredible. Both the online content, but also the opportunity to meet peers in person that I’d only previously spoken to through a webcam. It felt like being a child at Christmas!” Chris says.
Data Platform MVP Pragati Jain, who works as a Senior Consultant at Avanade, says her Gain Agility with an Integrated Data Platform session was a great experience.
“This was my first ever in-person session at Build. My experience has been outstanding. This event gave me a platform to engage in a Microsoft event and especially to meet and network with the people I have been in contact with virtually,” she says.
Chris also says he wouldn’t hesitate to go again, noting that the broad audience and usual MVP familiar faces felt like “we were stitching together a growing community.”
As a Developer Technologies MVP in Belgium, Adrien Clerbois’ session covering DevOps Deployment Industrialization and Professionalism (In French) focused on a topic that is so vast that everyone can bring their own experience to the forum.
“I had the chance to exchange with a community that has its vision and its challenges, and
together we thought about strategies for evolution based on the constraints of each,” Adrien says.
“It's so beautiful to see the community find ways to improve together,” he adds.
All in all, Adrien says that the session was very rewarding. “What a pleasure to meet the community again and to exchange around a subject that is always about innovation!”
Business Applications MVP Tomislav Karafilov and Windows Development MVP Christian Glessner say that they enjoyed their Build sessions.
Tomislav’s session on Power Platform Maturity Meets Corporate Culture (In German) was made even better by the great team who helped him in his presentation.
“I had great technical support, everything worked fine. Alone, I had a problem monitoring the chat, but I had support from another MVP colleague in chat,” he says. Adding: “The venue was cool, the food and drinks were perfect, and getting to meet people in person was super!”
Christian also enjoyed his session. “It was fun!” Christian says. “And the audience enjoyed it as well! We joined with a HoloLens into the Teams session and had good audience engagement/dynamic.”
Christian’s session Welcome to the Metaverse was a hot topic, and he says that everyone in attendance was glad to be enjoying an in-person event again.
Eduardo Amaral, a Business Applications MVP from Brazil, says his session on Power Platform: Cloud-Native Development (In Portuguese), “Was awesome.”
“We did the presentation in a hybrid model, where we brought some people to the studio and others stayed remotely. The interaction with people who were remote and face-to-face
was a success. The participation received in-person and remotely was wonderful,” Eduardo says.
Eduardo’s session also included Angelo Belchior, MVP of Developer Technologies, whose presence at his session made him feel “honored.”
“We talked a lot about the integration of Citizen Developer Power Platform with Professional Developer. After this conversation, I've already planned some sessions to talk about this subject,” he adds, noting how transforming people's lives through education is his passion.
Also from Brazil, Developer Technologies MVP Carlos Dos Santos says his experience hosting a session on the topic of Cloud-Native Development was “very good,” stating he enjoyed the questions, points raised during the discussion, and in-person interactions.
“Thanks for the opportunity and count me in for future events,” Carlos says.
No other country had more “Table Topics” than Japan with a whopping 19 in total. The speaker count for this year’s Japanese event totaled 47 people, which included 43 MVPs, 2 MVPs/RDs, one RD, and one community member.
Takayoshi Tanaka, a Developer Technologies/Microsoft Azure MVP, and Yuta Matsumura, a Developer Technologies MVP, both hosted extremely interesting topics.
Takayoshi presented on How to effectively use Microsoft technical support? (In Japanese) while Yuta focused on App Modernization for .NET
“I was excited since I could discuss a topic with other MVPs and attendees,” Takayoshi shares. “The MVPs have different experiences and backgrounds, and several agenda items were discussed and explained from various perspectives.”
Yuta says that being a session speaker at Build was a wonderful experience, adding, “It brought me a different experience from previous ones I joined as one of the attendees. The Online Build conference made us feel closer.”
Because Japan’s event was held remotely, Takayoshi wanted to thank technical support and communicate how the many participants felt a sense of respect for the support engineers involved and how they utilized technical support to achieve business results.
Yuta is already calling for more participants for the next Microsoft Build, adding that the addition of a Japanese time-zone session was part of this discussion’s success. But most of all, Build is about growth through learning and enjoyment.
“Let’s continue to have fun with the technical community!” Yuta says.
MVP profile details as of June 1, 2022.
