You might have already noticed that we didn’t publish any articles in the past two days, we were away attending the Microsoft MVP South Asia Open Day 2008 at Goa from 15th to 17th Nov. The Open Day was held at Kenilworth Hotels. The event had various technical session from Microsoft as well as sessions from fellow MVPs. There was also various community Buzz activities for networking between MVPs.
From Microsoft, the open day was attended by Howard Lo, Regional Manager, Asia Pacific and Greater China, Abhishek Kant – Microsoft, India – MVP Lead, Abhishek Bakshi – Microsoft, India – MVP Program Specialist, Tanuj Vohra – Microsoft, India – Partner Director, Visual Studio Test Business and Pradeep Parappil, Lead Product Manager.
Day 1: Started at 16:00 hours on 15th Nov with an welcome note by Howard, followed by a MVP Briefing session by Abhishek Kant. The third session was Windows 7 demo by Pradeep, but due to some technical problems it was shifted to next day and instead we had a presentation from Tanuj on Microsoft IDC. At 20:00 hours we had the Goan theme Beach Party. The party was followed by Open Spaces, where MVPs had their own technical and non technical sessions.
Howard Lo with the Keynote
Tanuj from Microsoft IDC
Day 2: Started late by half an hour at 9:00 am with the first session being the Windows 7 demo by Pradeep. This was followed by a big debate on Windows 7. We had good discussion with Pradeep on the changes coming up in Windows 7.
Afternoon we had a community buzz where we were divided into four teams and had to prepare for the launch of a new product. At 16:45, we headed out to Panaji to have a river cruise. This was followed by a Casino party. The open spaces continued on Day 2 as well.
Day 3: Started with a blogging session by Abhishek Kant in which we bloggers discussed points on making the MVP blogs more popular with quality content.
Next we had a small session on upcoming changes in MVP website which was taken by Abhishek Baxi.
The next item was the team presentations on product launch which was followed by closing note from Howard and Abhishek. Overall the MVP Open Day was a great event and we had really good fun for 3 days and this session helped to meet and network with other MVPs.
@ the pool (Kenilworth Resorts)
Thanks to Pinal Dave for the images
