.NET University at TechEd SEA - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
This week, Mark Dunn, Todd Fine, and I found ourselves running a series of .NET University sessions at TechEd SEA here in beautiful Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Todd and Mark are Microsoft Regional Directors, and both helped me extensively in creating and delivering .NET University. While here, it's been fun getting to know the city and meeting with local developers.
Before the conference started, we did a little sightseeing. The Petronas Towers are visually stunning. Here's a couple of pictures that Mark and Todd took (btw, just for perspective, that sky bridge is 42 stories up):
Of course we went up on the bridge during the day to see the city from above:
After a day of sightseeing, it was off to TechEd for the week:
We have run a total of 4 courses. Every seat in every course was taken. Here's one of the class photos, that will soon be on the .NET U Alumni page:
We've had a lot of great local instructors, like Dennis (below left), who presented Tuesday on both WPF and CardSpace, and Gerald (below right), who presented Thursday on CardSpace:
We've enjoyed meeting all the great folks over here, and getting the experience of the Malaysian culture. The food is outstanding, although Todd had a pepper one night that almost did him in :-).
We're looking forward to seeing many of the attendees go back to their communities and re-use the .NET University material.
While here, Mark has been recording material for an upcoming .NET Rocks show, which is focused on TechEd SEA. Watch for it to air in the near future. We also attended the TechNation User Group in Kuala Lumpur, which brings together .NET developers, SQL Experts, and IT Pros. Interviews from that visit will be featured in the upcoming show.
Todd decided to be a bit more adventurous than Mark and me, and found a park with, uh, well, rather open access to the animals. That's not an altered picture. He's actually standing with his hand on an elephant. Todd also managed to ride on and swim with a herd of elephants. That's Microsoft Regional Director Scott Golightly with Todd and the baby elephant on the right.
A couple of the the developers from the conference took us to a traditional Malaysian dinner on Wednesday. The restaurant was called Nirvana Maju, and we ate a variety of spicy entrees, served on banana leaves. It was outstanding, to say the least. As you can see from the before/after pictures, we ate some serious food. Malaysian tradition is to fold the banana leaf toward you after the meal, if you liked the food. We did, and we did. Chong LV (far left in the second picture) was one of our WPF presenters at .NET U (great job on the demos, LV).
It's been an interesting week, and lots of great conversations, great food, and great learning. Many thanks to the gracious developer/instructors at .NET who volunteered their time and energy to help others learn about .NET. I look forward to seeing you on stage at future events.
