Andy has posted about XNA CC codes going into MSDN AA - great news if you are teaching games programming (or want to) and want to get your students building games on Windows and Xbox 360. XNA Creators Club Codes are now in MSDN AA!

There is only a little while left to get your copy of Office Ultimate for £38.95 if you are a university student studying in the UK. And the good news is that Lee and Ray over in the Education team have opened it up to staff as well!! The Further Education blog has the detail on Ts&Cs, etc To...

It's been a busy couple of months for the Imagine Cup and we have a good 200-odd students fighting it out for great prizes and the opportunity to travel to Paris (in style) to compete at the worldwide finals. And to celebrate the best year for the Imagine Cup in the UK we are going to run an event tentatively...

We are holding an event for UK academics (students supplying a . ac.uk email will be allowed to attend) at Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes to help teaching staff understand Silverlight and how it can be applied in teaching. +  The event will have several sessions covering the following: Keynote...

We've received a lot of positive feedback from our faculty contacts about the Imagine Cup this year. Just to recap why it's such a great year : More competition focus in the UK including great prizes Easier to get involved in the Software Design (just an idea to start). All your teams can enter rather...

We get a lot of requests from faculty to promote the Imagine Cup to their students. To that end, we've pulled together several resources that will make it easier to promote to your students. URL to promote to students to register http://www.microsoft.co.uk/uk/academia/imaginecup/2008/quiz/default.mspx...

Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend but it looked like a cracking event (pulled together mainly by Claire on our team !). A great event hosted by Nottingham council and Nottingham Trent University. We hosted a bunch of academics and students at two venues - a Paul Smith cinema and bar called Bluu to...

Kate put up a post on our Academic blog around a new teaching program we are planning to roll out in the next couple of months and she is looking for feedback and a gauge of interest with any UK academics - specifically both our traditional audience of Computer Science/Engineering and those from a Design...

Back after a great week in the US attending the annual sales and marketing funfest that is MGX. I've come back really buzzed about the job I do and ready to make a big difference in the coming year. And what better way to start than an event for some of our most important customers in academia. The guys...

I haven't been part of the development but it's good to see this finally go live. We've been hankering for a 1-stop-shop for students wanting to see what Microsoft has to offer for ages and finally have it at: www.microsoft.com/uk/students It highlights: Windows Vista Windows Media Xbox and PC gaming...

It's finally public knowledge, that I am moving away from pure evangelism (yeap, that's my job title!) and over to marketing! I currently spend a lot of time deep in technology (primarily Silverlight and WPF ) coding, learning it and talking about it and I've enjoyed the immense opportunities this has...

In my old job, I used to spend a lot of time talking to academics about curriculum development covering a number of subject areas. Unfortunately, WPF was never really on the agenda due to timing and it being a beta product - now that it is prime time several academics have contacted the team and they...

The local Imagine Cup software design finals are over once again. I was lucky enough to be involved, this year in a much more relaxed capacity doing "demo dolly" with my team mates showing the latest and greatest in developer tools and platforms, and also getting to give some last minute support to the...

Yesterday, I travelled north to visit Birmingham Computer Science department to give a guest presentation on WPF to a large lecture theatre's worth of students. I think that will be my 4th presentation there in 3 odd years so it's kind of a regular gig, even though I was filling in for Team Academia...

I've been following the development of XNA for a long time since it's introduction at GDC a couple of years ago and was aware of the developments with XNA Express and the possibility to develop games for the Xbox 360. In my old job I used to spend a lot of time working with universities teaching games...

as promised. What an experience! My set can be found here Other UK ICers photos are here and here

After 8 days, 12000 miles of plane journeys, about 3 hours sleep a night and one of hell of a time I am back in the UK after attending and supporting all the teams at this year's Imagine Cup competition. My job for the event was to host Team 3Pair representing the UK as they competed in the Software...