I truly love my job. It takes me to exotic places like Cairo, Warsaw and Paris. It gets my adventurous spirit going when I get to fly to Colorado, Texas and DC. It makes me smile when I drive through Binghamton, Ithaca, and Syracuse…

Yes, it does – every place has a story, every school and college is unique in some way, and it’s a brilliant opportunity, no matter where I go, to meet with students and faculty and talk about technology.

I will admit that at times it feels like I travel a little TOO much, but I think I’d rather that than never travelling at all.

This week and next I’m going on one of my roadtrips through upstate New York. I try to do this once or twice a year to make sure I get to see what’s going on up here and talk about Imagine Cup, DreamSpark and other cool technology-related topics. I wanted to give you an idea of what I’m doing to show you what it’s like in the life of an Academic Developer Evangelist.

So, where am I going and what will I be doing at each stop? I’m not going to mention Imagine Cup in them because I’ll be talking about that everywhere I go… take a look:

1. SUNY New Paltz. Two days. First day is a Phone Camp event for students and pro developers – four hours of technical sessions, followed by a hackathon to build your own app. Second day allowed me to sit down with multiple faculty from the Computer Science and Engineering departments and talk about curriculum and technology/industry trends, as well as do guest lectures in a Senior Compilers class and a Web Server Programming class.
2. SUNY Binghamton. One day. Sit down with faculty, as well as a “Build your own app” workshop for 40-50 students with prizes, pizza and more – every student will be able to walk out knowing they built their own app. Pretty cool as far as I’m concerned.
3. Ithaca College. Two Days. Sunday I’m catching up with the team that made it to the Worldwide Finals of Imagine Cup last year for Game Design – Web to see what they’ve been up to. Monday, I am doing another “Build your own app” workshop as well as a guest lecture in a Virtual Reality class, and again speaking to faculty.
4. University of Rochester. One Day. All day Phone Camp event.
5. Syracuse University. One Day. “Build your own app” workshop.
6. SUNY Albany. One Day. “Build your own app” workshop. Faculty discussions.
7. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – RPI for short because I can never remember how to spell it!. One Day. Guest talk at student Open Source group. Also talking with faculty.
8. Boston. One Day. AT&T Phone Hackathon running on the Saturday 8.30 through to 4.30.
9. I get to fly home from Boston which will be a relief after 2 hours driving a day.

If you want to see it visually – here’s my road trip map (the extra pins are for the places I’m staying overnight, for example, I stay in Poughkeepsie when I visit New Paltz).

Click on the map to see it in full size. 863.5 miles, 14 hours 49 minutes of driving.

So there you have it – 11 days, 8 different locations. Talking about Imagine Cup, DreamSpark, how to build your own applications for Windows Phone, Phone Camps, guest lectures on a variety of things, meeting with faculty members all over, and lots of driving.

If you’re at a New York state school and you would like me to come visit to talk about technology, such as some of the things I’ve mentioned here, please get in touch with me. I’m always keen on meeting new people and finding out what gets them excited.