Microsoft Tech·Ed-India 2010 was broadcast LIVE from Bangalore by MSPs Saurabh Raje and Ashish Shendure at Padmabhushan Vasantdada Patil Pratishthan's College of Engineering (PVPP CoE), Mumbai under the Microsoft DreamSpark Yatrabanner as a part of MSP activity.

Initially on learning of this great opportunity, we had planned to broadcast the event on all the three days. However, as our college was closed on the 14^th of April due to a public holiday, we were able to screen the event on 12^thand 13^th April, 2010 only. Moreover, since the college granted us permission to use the auditorium onlyduring working hours, the schedule ofthe event had to be restricted to 09:30 AM - 04:45 PM.

We had pasted DSY and MSP Event posters at prominent locations around the campus. The screening was done in the Manohar Phalke Auditorium located in the college building. Unfortunately, the college authorities were unable to provide us an Internet connection and Saurabh had to buy a wireless USB connection.Further, we had to use his personal laptop and stereo speakers.

Although the auditorium could seat a maximum of 135 students, we registered 140 students for each day (expecting a minor dropout). Day 1 was attended by 132 students, while 118 turned up for the 2^nd day. Thus, we achieved a total turnout of 250 students for both days combined.We had also reserved a classroom to be used in case there were any on-the-spot registrations.

First, we introduced the audience to the Microsoft Tech·Edtechnology conference. We also spoke on how much Microsoft is doing for the student community through DreamSpark, and on the DreamSparkYatra initiative.

Most of the attendees were students of the Second Year and Third Year Information Technology and Computer Engineering Degree courses. We switched between tracks throughout the two days and screened those sessions which we thought would be of most interest to the students.

We also showed videos of Microsoft products during the short 15-minute breaks between two sessions in order to maintain the audience’s level of attention. These included the Fun IE8 Videos posted on the MSP SkyDrive, Bing’s Search Overload Syndrome series (which many found pretty amusing) and other adverts, as well as a few on Surface, Project Natal and Windows 7.

Students were interested in knowing more about Microsoft’s latest offerings and how using these will make their work easier and faster. The presentation, speakers and quality of information provided were highly appreciated.

We faced problems, however, due to the poor quality of the video stream, with part of the audience losing interest during sessions involving demos of Visual Studio 2010 (many complained that the code was illegible). Most attendees - in their feedback forms cited this as the one area which they would like to be improved upon.

The following tables show all the sessions that were broadcast by us:

On the whole, the event was a great success. We gained a lot of experience in organising and managing an event of this magnitude, apart from the respect and recognition that comes with it.

We would like to thank Microsoft and the StudPart Team for giving us this wonderful opportunity and for providing us this platform for sharpening our communication skills through the Microsoft Student Partners programme.

Regards,

Ashish Shendure (ashishshendure@student-partners.com)

and

Saurabh Raje (saurabhraje@student-partners.com)