Korean MVPs and Regional Director (RD) worked together to facilitate the offline community experience for the first time in two and a half years and organized the Microsoft Build 2022 After Party in Seoul on Saturday, June 25, 2022. In addition to 100 online attendees, more than 150 attendees including students visited the event venue, Microsoft Korea office in Seoul, and learned the brand-new technologies together with their community friends.
The event aimed to provide a learning opportunities for the latest technical updates announced at the Microsoft Build 2022 in May 2022, 12 MVPs, 1 RD, and 5 Microsoft employees organized 12 technical sessions about Microsoft Azure, Microsoft AI, .NET MAUI, GitHub Copilot, Power BI, and so on. Amazingly, the attendee survey shows that 98% of all attendees answered the event was helpful to get to know more about the Microsoft technologies.
“It was a very enjoyable event, and everyone would have felt that way,” says YoungWook Kim, Microsoft Azure MVP in Korea. He supported this event as a keynote speaker and attracted the attendees by sharing Microsoft's philosophical vision and its technical achievements. He emphasizes the biggest difference between in-person events and online events was that in-person events enable us to have a closer relationship than just sharing technical information. According to YoungWook, he would love to have more in-person opportunities to explore the community contributions with MVP friends. “After this event, MVPs gathered and exchanged ideas to help each other and contribute to the world.”
Mixed Reality MVP, YongSeong Song, who planned and moderated, says face-to-face meeting was the best opportunity to talk and exchange ideas. “It was good that we were able to hear about their experiences in their respective fields while interacting freely and individually at the same time, talking about collaboration. I look forward to having more offline events and opportunities like this in the future.” In terms of upcoming community activation as a local community leader, he reveals an ongoing plan. “I am planning a community where I can communicate about Metaverse-related technologies and contents related to the Mixed Reality part, which is my MVP field.”
Soyoung Lee, the Regional Manager in One Asia and the Community Program Manager in Korea, worked with the MVP and RD speakers and her colleagues within Microsoft. “There were a lot of young developers who attended this event. They answered this Build After Party by Korean MVPs were very helpful to learn around the Microsoft technologies and the future direction. 95% of total attendees answered they want to come back if there is any chance like this. This was very impressive to listen to their voice directly.”
Since the pandemic began, MVPs have been supporting the community members through online engagements. Many people shared a lot of helpful tips for hosting online community events, delivering better online presentations, and building a new relationship virtually. Doing what they could do, they were patiently waiting for the time to reunion. After two and a half years passed, MVPs, RDs, and other community members finally got together.
The keynote speaker YoungWook published a short video on YouTube to share the moments that show how this event went. It was full of attendees’ passion for learning and connecting: https://youtu.be/PuZNRFmIi3s
