Microsoft Student Partner Event, London
So last week was spent out and about on the road again at a whole host of student events across the country starting off on Sunday with our second Microsoft Student Partner event of the year organised by the legend that is Chris in London at Planet Hollywood in Leicester Square.
The event fortuitously coincided with the Superbowl final which meant that Planet Hollywood was overflowing with American cheer leaders much to the delight of the predominantly male MSP audience and especially Lydon just check out that smile!
The social evening was followed by a day of presentations at the MSN office in Soho, central London and included some excellent speakers such as Jules Gold from Microsoft Research who spoke about the games development industry as well as Mike Smith who showed off some amazingly cool Microsoft IPTV technology. We were also honoured to have Márcio Sete (below), a Brazilian Student Ambassador, attend the two days and he gave an amazingly impassioned presentation about the life of a student ambassador in Brazil. And after last year's Imagine Cup finals in Brazil I think I definitely need to find a way to swap jobs with Rogerio my Brazilian counterpart ..
Xbox LAN Party, Birmingham University
Following the MSP event the Academic Team then headed north in dribs and drabs for the Midlands and the University of Birmingham which for me started off with handing out prizes at the awesome Xbox LAN party organised by our 4 Microsoft Student Partners; Richard, Tom, Kieran and George followed by a trip to hear some live music with Ian Pearshouse (Imagine Cup judging fame) to Jools Holland’s Jamhouse located in a stunning, Georgian building in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter.
Gen ’05, Birmingham University
After a great night out on the tiles in Birmingham the Academic Team then headed over to the Great Hall at the University of Birmingham for the second of our Gen ’05 regional campus events which thanks to Emily are designed for any student passionate about technology and which include a whole series of presentations and interactive demos on What’s New in Visual Studio .NET 2005, Developing on Mobile Devices, Gaming and Recruitment. We were swamped by over 400 students from Birmingham, Aston and Wolverhampton but fortunately our trusted MSPs were around to help out including Antranik (Sheffield University) and also Steve (former Birmingham MSP), Chris (below) and Martin (former Microsoft Student Interns from Aston) plus we even made computinguk.
I’ve finally managed to catch my breathe and it’s almost time to head off up North to Leeds for our third event on Thursday so if you are in the area please do pop by or alternatively catch us at Hertfordshire and Southampton!