MSDN Student Flash

Senior VP at the Intern Party?

Steven Sinofsky, a senior vice president at Microsoft in the Office group, has a blog. In his latest entry he talks about a party the Office group throws for their summer interns. I think it is interesting that Microsoft VPs believe that interns are important enough to show up at parties to talk to them. OK maybe it is that the parties are fun but still ...

In actual fact I have found that the VPs I have wanted to contact have all been very approachable. That's one of the things that makes Microsoft a great company to work for.

- Alfred (Microsoft)

Heard at theSpoke

Dave is taking a new job working for the Xbox division. He's started to blog about what that work is all about. It looks like he's in for some fun time and will have a lot of interesting things to talk about in the coming weeks and months. If you are at all interested in game programming you may want to watch his blog.

Meanwhile, Morris Sim is introducing a lot of information about the upcoming Imagine Cup finals in Japan. He's got information and links to videos. Even if you are not going to Japan you will want to check these out. Who knows, it may help motivate you to enter next year's event.

Speaking of video, Channel 9 has a new video interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

- Alfred Thompson (Microsoft)

Bill Gates and the Windows Embedded Student Challenge

Justin Creasy is blogging about the Microsoft Windows Embedded Student Challenge (WESC 2005) event going on this week-end in Redmond. In this installment he talks about Bill Gates visiting the teams who have come from all over the world. Justin was part of the team that won this event last year. Since then he and his team have graduated and started their own company.

- Alfred Thompson (Microsoft)

Justin is also an example of the sort of people who, while in college, blog at theSpoke.

Win a trip to the PDC

Channel 9 is running a contest with a free trip to PDC05. Details here. Winners will come from bloggers and from people who enter their Shareware Coding Contest.

- Alfred Thompson

2005-2006 Microsoft Student Ambassadors for the US of A!

We're announcing the first group of Microsoft Student Ambassadors for US universities next school year. A full list is below - each individual who was nominated will get an email directly by the end of today with more details. For those not selected in this round, we will let you know if you are being considered for the next round.

The Lead Student Ambassadors, a subset of the group who will be actively involved in helping us manage, refine, and build the program next year, are listed at the bottom of this mail.

Remember the MSA program for next academic year starts off in September - those selected will have opportunities for technical training during the summer so you can start off the year knowing everything you need to know about Visual Studio, SQL Server, .NET, and the rest. Just keep an eye out for the mail with follow on steps!

To everyone who was nominated, selected or not, we'd like to thank you for your interest in the program.

To anyone still interested in becoming a US Student Ambassador, there are more opportunities to become one! We will post news on this blog about how to get nominated for the next round, which will take place over the summer with selectees announced in August. Keep in mind we will consider up to TWO MSA's on many campuses, so if you already see a name next to your school, there may still be an opportunity to get involved. We are looking for skilled students in a wide range of technical majors, from CS and CE through MIS and IT (even Business, if you've got some great coding skills). You just need a passion for developer technology and for sharing it with others!

The MSA Web site will be updated with this shortly, and for next year we're looking at some great changes so everyone interested in the program (alumni, friends, whatever) can get involved and see what's going on.

On with the list!

2005-2006 Microsoft Student Ambassasdors (Those selected to date)

Dave	Copeland	Baker College of Flint
Micheal	Pettibone	Baylor University
Michael	Schuler	Boston College
Douglas	Koester	Bowling Green State University
Kurt	Kirkham	Brigham Young University
Ryan	Farmer	California Institute of Technology
Peter	McRae	CalPoly - SLO
Steven	Luu	CalPoly - Pomona
Robert	Strazzarino	California State University-Chico
Michael	Galloway	California State University-Fresno
Peter	Fortuna	California State University-Fresno
James	Cook	California State University-Long Beach
Andrew	Weng	California State University-Los Angeles
Emil	Mesropian	California State University-Los Angeles
Brent	Lamb	California State University-Montrey Bay
Karapet	Aslanyan	California State University-Northridge
Chris	Balassanian	California State University-Northridge
Robert	Klayman	Case Western Reserve University
Quinn	Thomas	Drexel University
Angel	Gonzalez	East Carolina University
Jeffrey	Arrington	East Tennessee State University
Nathan	Neitzke	Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Nikolay	Semov	Fairleigh Dickinson University
Inga	Bemman	Florida Atlantic University-Davie
Michael	Seeber	Grand Valley State University-Allendale
Matt	Propst	Grand Valley State University-Allendale
Paul	Onakoya	Howard University
Matt	Bell	Illinois State University
Samuel	Puckhaber	Illinois State University
Pamela	Chadsey	Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis
Adam	Patridge	Iowa State University
Ben	Knear	James Madison University
Brian	Reed	Marquette University
Melissa	Stover	Marshall University
Anthony	Pappas	Miami University-Oxford
Henry	Balanon	Michigan State University
Jeramey	Jannene	Milwaukee School of Engineering
Matthew	Newman	Minnesota State University-Mankato
Anthony	Anzalone	New York Institute of Technology
Daniel	Lozovatsky	Northeastern University
Chris	Lambert	Northeastern University
Anthony	Nedolast	Ohio State University
Scott	Molloy	Oregon State University
Kenneth	Mann	Pace University
Andrew	Chernauskas	Pennsylvania State University-Behrend College
Johan	Johansson	San Jose State University
Agnes	Lui	San Jose State University
Brad	Nunnally	Southern Illinois University
Gregor	Hochmuth	Stanford University
Shant	Stepanian	Stevens Institute of Technology
Avery	Zycherman	Suny at Binghamton
Ryan	Hoffman	Suny at Stony Brook
Richie	von Rauchhaupt	Suny at Stony Brook
Stephen	Naimoli	Suny Institute of Technology at Utica-Rome
Nathan	Robinson	Texas A&M University
Craig	Beall	The College of New Jersey
Faheem	Ibrahim	University of Arkansas-Fayetteville
Kunal	Kundaje	University of California Los Angeles
Guillory	Chris	University of California Los Angeles
Jeff	Lee	University of California-San Diego
David	Genetti	University of Denver
Kelly	Homnick	University of Florida
Thuy	Tran	University of Houston
Darren	Smith	University of Houston
Frank	Mitchell	University of Idaho
Cole	Grolmus	University of Iowa
Brandon	Barker	University of Kentucky
Vishal	Mody	University of Missouri-Kansas City
Joseph	Scheinberg	University of North Texas
Kyle	Abbott	University of Oklahoma
Ravi	Chugh	University of Pennsylvania
Paul	Sagona	University of South Carolina
Nikita	Polyakov	University of South Florida
Justin	Morris	University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Andy	Vanosdale	University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Eric	Jensen	University of Utah
Meng	Tan	University of Virginia
Brian	Ma	University of Washington-Seattle
Bret	Holstein	University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Colin	McCambridge	University of Wisconsin-Madison
Brendan	Weitzman	Washington State University-Pullman
Jake	Burkey	Washington State University-Pullman
Mohammad	Akbar	Washington University
Nick	Sinclair	Western Michigan University
Chirjeev (CJ)	Bedi	Western Michigan University
Shauntelle	Davis	Xavier University

And the Lead Student Ambassadors for next year:

Peter	Fattore	Bradley University
Michael	Olivero	Florida International University
Phillip	Katzman	Hawaii Pacific University
David	Smith	Michigan State University
Hiva	Javaher	New Mexico State University
Xiao	Wang	Stanford University
Jeff	Chen	University of California-Berkeley
Kenny	Weiss	University of Maryland
Tony	Valenti	University of Nebraska at Omaha
Mahan	Hajianpour	University of Southern California
Andy	Vanosdale	University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Amanda	Jensen	University of Texas
Garrett	Wu	University of Washington-Seattle
Kevin	Reck	University of Wisconsin-Madison
Chris	Stewart	Virginia Commonwealth University

-Kevin, Tracy, and the crew on the US Academic Developer team at Microsoft

.NET BattleBot is TechEd Keynote guest of honor

This is fairly cool - the first Battlebot based on .NET was a guest of honor at TechEd 2005.

Update on 2005-2006 Student Ambassador announcement

I know, we're running a day behind our goal of annoucning these on June 7. But we're almost there - we will post the first group of 2005-2006 Microsoft Student Ambassadors for the United States this afternoon (Pacific time) on this blog. Everyone who applied will also receive a direct email.

After I saw Matt's post asking where the results were, I realized I needed to put up an update!

-Kevin

Windows Embedded Student ChallengE 2005 Finalists Announced

Just got this from Ivan Joseph, who leads this very cool effort:

The 2005 finalists have been announced for the Windows Embedded Student ChallengE! The top 30 teams from all over the world will be in Redmond June 17-18th, 2005 to compete for top honors. Assuming my new baby allows me time out of the house :) I'll have to swing by and check out the teams.

You can read more about the competition here.

Note this is separate from Imagine Cup - we just love running competitions for students, so you'll see LOTS of them going on at any given time.

Florida presentation on SPOT, by faculty and students

Just saw this from Shervin's blog - Florida .NET user group is hosting some faculty and students from DeVry University at their June 14th meeting in Miramar, to talk about SPOT:

MS SPOT Watch Technology by Ed Hill (DeVry University Faculty) and Students

An overview of Smart Personal Objects Technology, Microsoft's latest (and smallest) .NET platform. We'll look at the devices and platform, see what's coming, and discuss development on the TinyCLR. We'll also plan to take a look at 3rd party .NET tools.

If you're in the area and want to attend, you can RSVP at: http://www.fladotnet.com/reg.aspx?EventID=170

MSR Faculty Fellowship Awards

Kevin Schofield posts about Microsoft Research's New Faculty Fellowships Awards. About the program:

INETA Newsletter

If you're a student, I highly recommend finding out about the local .NET user group near your school or hometown. Chances are they are a member of INETA, which is a fantastic group of volunteers from around the world dedicated to helping .NET user groups become more successful and reach out to more aspiring and professional developers.

For a look into the types of activities they are involved in, take a peek at the May newsletter, which just went online.

-Kevin

Imagine Cup US SDI winners up on Tablet PC Dev Center

Team ECESIS from Virginia Commonwealth, who won the US Software Design Invitational in Imagine Cup, are highlighted up on the MSDN Tablet PC Developer Center! They are also starting up a blog about their experiences on the run up to Japan. They had a great article written up about them in their local paper too (and I even like my quote).

Last and certainly not least, the Channel 9 video of some of the competitors is finally up!

-Kevin

TechEd

Over at theSpoke, Brian Scarbeau is blogging about TechEd. Sounds like he was impressed with the opening keynote.

- Alfred Thompson

OneNote PowerToy contest

Student devs, check out the competition around OneNote PowerToys.

(link via Scoble)

Want to beta test New Zealand?

Just by downloading Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Beta 2, you will get a shot at a trip to New Zealand and an assignment to help the New Zealand Snowboard Training Group bring an edge to their new Web site! Three students will win this sweet prize package to the land o' Lord of the Rings.

Follow this link for all the good details.

Only US students are eligible (wishing I were one, right about now!).

Good luck!