dsy@ BIT

 

The next place Dreamspark yatra was at Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, Sathy

On 17th March 2010. Sathy or Sathyamangalam is also a small city 80km from Coimbatore. So this becomes our 6th city and 8^th Dreamspark event.

This event was organized by Suresh and Siddharth CBEUG MSP of same college. The way they organized the entire event was commendable. We had more than 550 students with a mixture of MCA, Computer Science, Electronics, Electrical and even Arts.

The guests were felicitated by the college Principal and HOD Computer Science.

We had planned for a full day technical event with a little bit of fun

We started with the regular Microsoft Academic Initiative which included Microsoft Student Partner Program, CBEUG - Coimbatore User Group and Dreamspark yatra.

Then the usual robotics session. The afternoon was a mixture of some techii, non techii and fun stuff. We had a very cool and interactive session by Abhishek suresh on Powerpoint 2010. He explained the various latest features of it. Then we had a technical session by Jibin on Silverlight and Project natal. Students were amazed by the Natal Project.

Then we had the usual Tech Gyaan Masala.As this session was a Hit in all the other events, we made it mandatory. Students were very keen throughout this session and were amazed by the cool features.

DSY@ CIET

 

Ever since CBEUG was formed, we always wanted to conduct an event in Coimbatore Institute of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore. Finally it came true on 13^th March 2010. This is the 3^rd DSY in Coimbatore city and 7^th Dreamspark yatra event.

This event was organized and coordinated by CBEUG female MSPs, Harini and Vinodhini and of the same college. So far in the history of CBEUG, there were no active female MSPs. But they have proved that they are not like senior female MSPs .The hospitality provided by them and the management was amazing. We had more than 375 students with a mixture of MCA, Computer Science, Electronics, Electrical and even Arts.

The other chief guests of this event were

Kumar Rathnam, Microsoft IDC, Hyderabad

Sundar Raman, Ex – President CBEUG

Anil Emage, Founder of Leadership Village Wayanad

Laila, Founder of Leadership Village Wayanad

The guests were felicitated by the college Principal and HOD Computer Science.

We had planned for a full day technical event with a little bit of fun. This time along with the Dreamspark Yatra sessions we had integrated Leadcap. Where Anil Emage and Laila took a session about leadership and also how they managed to motivate the kids in their village. They shared stories of village kids of age 13 or 14 who blog and also kids who presented international seminars. This session was included so that students realize that “if village government school kids can do things like this, then why can’t City Engineering Student”

We started with the talk by Mr.Kumar on “Virtualization”. He explained how they solve real time problems and also gave demos on Virtual PC .

Immediately after that we had a session by me again on Robotics Studio. A demo of a simple programming in robot was shown.

The afternoon was a mixture of some non techii and fun stuff. We had the Imagine cup activity conducted by Kenedy. He explained about the various events of Imagine cup 2010 and also conducted a test for the students. The one who scored highest was awarded with a cash prize of Rs.500 sponsored by the college.

Then we had the leadership session by Laila and Anil, explaining all about Leadcap, Leadership Village Wayanad etc.We had a very motivating and inspiring session by them.

Then we had Tech Gyaan Masala, which is a session on how to solve problems faced by students. It was a mixture of Deepzoom, Auto collage, Photosynth, Kodu, Small Basics, Windows writer and many other useful applications from Microsoft. They were explained by MSPs for some 10 min each. Students were very keen throughout this session and were amazed by the cool features. 

Again had a great experience. The time management was amazing. On a whole this was the best Dreamspark yatra we ever conducted.

DSY @ VELALAR ENGINEERING COLLEGE

I would say this event was a major milestone achieved in CBEUG history. Unfortunately i was not able to join the event.

This was the biggest DreamSpark Event in India and was conducted at Velalar Engineering College, in Erode, on 7^th March 2010. This is the 5^th city of our DreamSpark Campaign. For the second time we created history. The first event of CBEUG where we addressed an audience strength of 2500. It was an amazing challenge.

This event was organized by the CBEUG MSPs, Venkat, Gopinathan, Shiva, Aravindhan, Balaji. The way they organized the entire event was awesome. They had a very short span of time and they were capable of bringing 1200 students from other colleges. They went to individual colleges and invited the students. They also took a small session in the colleges creating interest among the students. They did it without any assistance from any other MSP.They pulled off the DreamSpark Yatra amazingly well. The hospitality provided was good. We had more than 2500 students in a single hall which had an overhead balcony also. The crowd was a mixture of students coming from various departments like MCA, Computer Science, Electronics, Electrical and IT.

 

The key speaker of this event was

Mr. Suhas Deshmukh, Microsoft IDC

 

The Session began with Mr.Suhas explaining about the testing methodologies in Microsoft. The students were very eagerly listening to him. The interaction was good at the venue. The students enjoyed the explanation of Mr. Suhas. The students came up with a lot of questions to Mr. Suhas

After that session Animesh Jain took on XNA Framework. He created a simple game using XNA in 10 Minutes. The crowd was amazed by this session. He also showed some sample games.

Abhishek Suresh began his session on UX but unfortunately the Projecter failed to work due to over heating. Abhishek Suresh then handled the session efficiently without the help of the projector. It was a challenge to handle such a big crowd without the projector. The crowd was also getting pretty agitated due to the high temperature climate present there. The auditorium was also not properly ventilated.

After Abhishek’s Session, Jibin took on Windows 7 and Project Natal. The crowd was in awe with the Natal Video and the various features of Windows 7. The projector also resumed working.

Sathya and Kennedy handled the next session. Imagine Cup Activity. We shot questions to the audience and gave away goodies to the correct answering attendees. It was highly interactive and interesting as the students wanted to stay back without lunch till 3:30. But we wound up as soon as possible so that the college officials would be able to handle the crowd.

And this time we tried something Different. We asked the audience for their favourite actor and Rajinikanth was voted in. Then I asked the question: “Which Operating System does Rajinikanth use and why?”

The winner won a ticket to the PDC @ Coimbatore J and a USB Speaker.

 

Though this event was a huge success, we learnt that handling huge student crowd is not an easy job. So we decided not to have any more big events like this in future.

DSY@ Muthayamal engineering college

 

This time it was at Muthayammal Engineering College, Rasipuram on 3rd March 2010. This is the 5th city and including this we have covered 3000 students: D.

This event was organized by one of the CBEUG MSP at Muthayammal Engg College, Krish Thaiyappan. The way he organized the entire event was commendable. The hospitality provided by him and his management was amazing. We had more than 550 students with a mixture of MCA, Computer Science, Electronics, Electrical and even Arts.

 

We were felicitated by the college Dean, Principal and HOD Computer Science.

 

We had planned for a full day technical event with a little bit of fun. In parallel to the sessions, we had also planned for

Dreamspark yatra pit stop (DY PIT STOP).

 

This is the brainchild of KrishThaiyappan, MSP from Muthayammal Engg College. DY PIT STOP is nothing but a stall, were all the MSPs other than the one taking sessions, show demos of Windows 7, Boku, Small Basics, Photosynth, Multipoint SDK, Office 2010, Silverlight etc. This was done to ensure the crowd that couldn’t attend the event can have a look at the demos at DY PIT STOP. This actually worked and MSPs had tough time managing the crowd in the DY PIT STOP.

 

We started with the regular Microsoft Academic Initiative which included Microsoft Student Partner Program, CBEUG - Coimbatore User Group and Dreamspark yatra. Immediately after that we had a session by Abhishek on User Experience which is a mixture of WPF, Silverlight and Expression studio. In the middle of the session I, conducted a Skit with Abhishek to make sure that the audience understand the "wide gap between Developer and Designer".

 

The next session was presided by me on Robotics Studio. A demo of a simple programming in robot was shown. The afternoon was a mixture of some non techii and fun stuff. We had the Imagine cup activity conducted by Kenedy. He explained about the various events of Imagine cup 2010 and also conducted a test for the students. The one who scored highest was awarded with a webcam. Then we had session on Windows 7 by Sathya Narayanan, he explained some cool and interactive features of Windows 7.

Then we had Tech Gyaan Masala, which is a session on how to solve problems faced by students. It was a mixture of Deepzoom, Virtual PC, Photosynth, Kodu, Small Basics, Windows writer and many other useful applications from Microsoft. They were explained by MSPs for some 10 min each. Students were very keen throughout this session and were amazed by the cool features.

This event as a whole was a wonderful experience. The best part was the time management. Keeping up time was always the difficult part in most of the session but this set as an example and we decided to carry this on.