Maria-Anastasia Moustaka is an IoT MVP in Greece who has been giving lectures and workshops since 2016 mainly through Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors community (Microsoft Student Partner community in 2016). She shares her technical knowledge mainly about Azure IoT and relevant Microsoft technologies with her peer students and high school students at in-person events in universities and virtual events.
Maria-Anastasia explains her first activity for students, “I started imparting my knowledge to students when I was a student, too, and I wanted to transmit my knowledge to my fellow students. So, I joined the Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors community and started lecturing and facilitating workshops about Azure. In addition, I find it very important to help someone in their first steps.”
She says she is trying to invite students into the community in different ways. One is her lectures at universities and with university communities, such as Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors. The other is communication through social networking. “In all my lectures, I try at least a little to emphasize the importance of being an active member of a community and helping and receiving help from others,” she adds. She reaches a wider audience by providing her information in English and Greek and sharing her session materials on her blog. She is dedicated to providing experiences for live attendees and other students who don’t join her events. Some student community members learn new things in from those within the community who did attend.
Asking her what she learned from her interaction with students, she answered important lessons were “Having the "hunger" to learn new things and live new experiences.” Curiosity and joy of learning are important elements for growth, and she adds her favorite moments, “I really like the questions asked by young people and the nice discussions that develop by answering them.”
She knows what students and young people prefer and demonstrates her leadership in her way as they expect. That’s why she has successfully been providing learning opportunities to her community members for more than five years. Based on her overall experience, she provides this message to anyone who wants to achieve more, “The secret for those who want to grow technically in the community is to learn new things, build projects, be consistent, and love what they do.”
Check out her blog posts for learning new thing from her past sessions:
Yearly Edu Summit 2021: All about Azure IoT
SNF Nostos Hackathon Greece 2021
Startups Online S3E1: Next Generation Innovators
MLSA Pakistan: Introduction to IoT
Microsoft Global Learning Connection 2020
MLSA Patras: Engineering student’s toolkit
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