This year has been exciting to be a Developer Evangelist covering the Academic space.  It’s been fun for me working with Student developers across the Greater Southeast.  Developer Evangelists all over the world have been engaging with students to inspire the next generation of developers to create unique experiences for Windows Phone.

A few months ago we announced a promotion called Big App On Campus targeting US student developers:

• The Idea: students create great apps
• The Reward: the developers of the top 10 apps all get flown to SXSW in Austin for a once-in-a-lifetime experience: passes to the music festival, a special concert with The Gracious Few and Candlebox, a VIP dinner with the bands, and an interview on national radio about their apps and experience
• The Big Payoff: the top overall paid and free app will each win $15k!

Microsoft Windows Phone focused teams have spent the past week judging all the submitted apps and have chosen the top 20 as semi-finalists (10 paid apps, 10 free apps). Now it’s up to YOU the public voting to determine who will get to join us at SXSW and who will return home $15k richer with the title “Big App on Campus”. 

I must say I am personally excited that some of the 20 semi-finalists are from the Universities/Colleges in the Southeast area, but I am very proud of all the student semi-finalists.

HERE IS THE ASK:

Please take 10 minutes to check out the student apps on our dedicated Facebook page. Download any apps that catch your eye and/or “Like” them on Facebook.

We will be using the downloads and “Likes” to determine the finalists and overall winners.

Check the apps out here: http://www.facebook.com/MicrosoftTechStudent

Please be kind and give all of the apps a fair look and consideration!

Feel free to share this great news! Thanks @BenLower for spearheading the voting initiative.

Today I read a commentary out of the San Francisco Bay Area, that discussed the fact that in the Bay Area they are not feeling the effects of the 8.9% Unemployment rate due to the overwhelming need for technologists and the growth of technology companies.   In fact, the article from Market Watch (that can be read here), noted that in the technology industry in the Bay area it seems to be the opposite of most industries which “there are far more employees than employers.” In the Bay Area, home of Silicon Valley, the article notes it is “quite the reverse.”

Well that translates to me that it is also a GREAT time to be a Student Developer studying Computer Science, Computer/Software Engineering, and Technology related majors.  What is so fun is that I have the unique opportunity to expose them to all the great development technologies we have at Microsoft.

Kinect for Windows just was released on February 2nd ( http://www.kinectforwindows.org ) and the Developer Preview of Windows 8 is available from the BUILD conference at (http://dev.windows.com/ ) and, of course, Windows Phone (http://create.msdn.com/ ) is available which means it’s a very FUN time to be a Developer especially a Student Developer with creative ideas that could be the next BIG thing.

To help get students started with their own applications, we have Hands-On Coding labs on University Campuses called appLabs. 

The Upcoming appLabs in the Southeast Area are:

Feb. 22: Georgia State University – Kinect for Windows appLab

Feb. 29: Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech) – Kinect for Windows appLab

March 10: Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech) – Kinect for Windows Hackathon

More  Development Sessions are on the way!!

Take advantage of the Coding Camps/appLabs on your Campus and get prepared for the job market that is ripe for “coders”.