In mid- March, Microsoft’s MVP Summit took place at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond and in Bellevue in Washington and I was happy to attend.
The annual MVP Global Summit is an exclusive event for Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) According to Microsoft "Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community. They are always on the "bleeding edge" and have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies. They have very deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services, while also being able to bring together diverse platforms, products, and solutions, to solve real-world problems. MVPs make up a global community of over 4,000 technical experts and community leaders across 90 countries/regions and are driven by their passion, community spirit, and quest for knowledge. Above all and in addition to their amazing technical abilities, MVPs are always willing to help others - that's what sets them apart.”
I was awarded in 2018 but missed the summit last year so this was my first time attending. Thanks to INTRASOFT International who sponsored my trip to Seattle I had a great experience.
We used the week for learning, building relationships and giving feedback which is simply great to directly interact with the product groups.
The content is strictly confidential so I can’t go into any details, but it was a great opportunity to learn all about the plans for the future in your area of focus through a series of technical sessions. My award category is Development Τechnologies so I mainly attended .NET-related sessions but I also had the chance to attend some very useful sessions about AI, Azure, Machine learning, IoT and many more.
Although the focus of the MVP Global Summit is on the technical sessions, in reality, the Summit offers so much more to its attendees. We had the opportunity to meet great people Like Scott Guthrie, Scott Hanselman (a good friend of our local Thessaloniki .NET Meetup), and Anders Hejlsberg (The creator of Turbo Pascal, Delphi, and C#) and of course a whole bunch of awesome MVPs from all over the world.
Before leaving we also had the chance to explore beautiful Seattle with the Greek team.
Overall it was a great experience we learned a lot and gained a lot to give back to our community in Greece! Next 2 stops DEVit Conference in Thessaloniki and Voxxed Days Athens both in June!
Author: Stratos Kourtzanidis