Microsoft SharePoint Community Day 2012

For the very first time Microsoft Bangladesh and SharePoint Experts Community jointly organized Microsoft SharePoint Community Day 2012. SharePoint is not a very old technology term in Bangladesh but the response of the event was remarkable. Specially the manifestation from Enterprise and Government sector customers.

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Our intention was to share success stories, career opportunities and platform offerings to the audience. Target audience were both IT Pro and Developers. We were worried about mixing up both audiences! But thanks to the community leads who handled it very well; though some said “the event was mainly focused on advertising SharePoint to the corporate people” on our Facebook event page.

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Here is a summary of  the event for you-

We were very fortunate to have Lutful Khandker, Azure Architect Evangelist from Microsoft Corp. among us. He came to visit Bangladesh for personal reasons but when he learned about the event, he was also very excited to meet the local community and see the response. He started the event with some practice and success stories of US and the world. He invited the developers to explore the platform and play with it, which might lead them to a very healthy career in future.

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After that MJ Ferdous from Brain Station 23 came on the stage with his session “SharePoint 2010 Overview and Introduction.” He tried to make the audience understand what SharePoint is, what are the benefits of using SharePoint. He almost answered 20 questions from the audiences, which was quite surprising.

Rakib Hasan from GrameenPhone IT came with his presentation “SharePoint as an Enterprise Solution” after the first coffee break. The response was HUGE on this session. Because we invited customers who bought SharePoint license and never implemented them, Rakib answered many of their queries too.

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Microsoft MVP Tanzim Saqib came with his presentation “Office 365: Be a SaaS/Cloud Developer Now and Start Selling Apps.” Office 365 is not available in Bangladesh but as Bangladeshi IT market is very much focused on outsourcing jobs from US/Europe, so this is to show the developers the opportunities available up there.

Md. Sofiuzzaman, Licensing Specialist from Microsoft Bangladesh highlighted the licensing side of SharePoint after lunch break. Most of the Audience didn’t have any knowledge on licensing and this session helped them to understand licensing. Many were surprised to learn about free SharePoint foundation.

Now the SharePoint magician speaker Mark Miller comes, who is the founder and editor of EndUserSharePoint.com. No he didn’t come all the way from New York; Microsoft Lync saved the money and we did the presentation online. The title of his presentation was “To Host or Not to Host: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Decisions” and after watching his presentation, I must say, Mark is really a magician. One moment he makes the audience confuse and the other moment he solves the confusion. I believe we do not have too many speakers like him in the industry. I’d like to take the privilege to quote one comment from one of the attendees on FaceBook-

One more session we did with Lync. Microsoft MVP Sohel Rana came with his presentation “SharePoint as Content Management System” from Denmark. His slot was for 30 minutes but he did the session for more than 1 hour because the question and answer session was very interesting.

Once again Tanzim Saqib came with his 2nd presentation “Hacking Office365 Online Services: SharePoint, Exchange, Lync. Oh my!” after the 2nd coffee break. Very interesting presentation for DEV audience.

After that “SharePoint 2010 Administration & Development” presentation was presented reciprocally by MJ Ferdous and Rabiul Islam from Microsoft Partner SoftwarePeople. This was VERY interesting session for the audience. The Q&A session was more than 30 minute long and the best part was, they were not the only one to answer the questions. By then some of the audiences started to answer other’s.

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Finally Microsoft MVP Ashraful Alam Joy came with his presentation “Utilizing SharePoint with TFS 2010.” But it was not the presentation. Joy is a very vocal speaker and all types of audience loves him for his career guidelines.

I’d like to say that the Q&A made the event so interesting. Finally a special thanks to Microsoft Bangladesh Family for their amazing support.

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We got very good response from media. Reporters from many national newspaper visited the event. Desh TV, Bijoy TV did news on the event and as Priyo.com was the E-Media partner of the event, they did live blogging on the event on their website.

Our concern was to make the community aware of SharePoint and after the event I believe we are more than successful with the presence of 350+ audience. And Finally we did a raffle draw and distributer WiMax Modems, Router and Windows Phone to the winners but all participants got colorful Windows Phone T-Shirts. And last but not least, event speakers were honored with crests.

Download the presentations:

1. SharePoint 2010 Overview and Introduction
2. SharePoint as an Enterprise Solution
3. Office 365: An Overview for Software + Services/Cloud developers
4. SharePoint Licensing
5. To Host or Not to Host: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Decisions
6. SharePoint as Content Management System
7. SharePoint 2010 Administration & Development
8. Utilizing SharePoint with TFS 2010

MSDN AA Installation Fiesta @ Independent University, Bangladesh

After the sign up between IUB & Microsoft on 7th April, 2011, the first Microsoft Developers Network Academic Alliance (MSDN AA) Installation Fiesta program was held at IUB premises from 28th November to 1st December, 2011. The program started at 10:30am on 28th November in the ground floor in front of DoSA (Division of Student Activities).

The MSDN AA Installation Fiesta was maintained by the MSPs of IUB. All the MSPs (Microsoft Student Partners) were present at the beginning & later they maintained the program in a group to serve the best to students. Registration booth was decorated with banners, necessary instructions so students can easily get themselves registered.
 
The feedback was pretty impressive from the students. At the beginning, 70 registration papers was submitted in the first single hour and end of the registration it was 400+. Besides this the departments, wasn’t enrolled themselves to MSDN AA yet, showed their interest to it."

Written by:
Mehedee Hasan
Campus Lead | Microsoft Student Partners | Independent University, Bangladesh.

MSDN AA Installation fiesta at CPIK was held for the very first time

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Installation fiesta at CPIK (City Polytechnic Institute, Khulna) was held for the first time. This arrangement has come to an end through long cherished inspiration. The function starts 27th November to 1st December. The presence of the people on the beginning day was not up to the mark; as it was an off day of the Institution. But from 28th to 1st December was congested with students, teachers and stuffs. Four persons- MSPs Bisawajit, Arefin, Takim and Mehedi were prepare to face several questions at different times. During the occasions the premises of Institution was festive look. All of participants completed MSDNAA registration episode through excitement.

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Besides Institution authority co-operate differently to success the function. The amount of registered participant was over 650 persons from beginning to last. The Institution premises were nicely decorated with festoons, banners. Totally all the concerning person were cordially helpful to success the function.

Empowering East West University with MSDN AA

East West University was established in 1996 as a non-profit organization. This university is the first major project of the Progoti Foundation for Education and Development (PFED), a non-profit, non-political, charitable organization maintained by a group of academics, business leaders, professionals and education enthusiasts led by Dr. Mohammed Farashuddin, prominent economist and former governor of Bangladesh Bank. The university was launched in September 1996 with 6 faculty members and 20 students in three programs, BBA, BSc in Computer Science and BA in English at the present campus of 45, Mohakhali Commercial Area, Dhaka. Currently, the university maintains a good number of slightly over six thousands students with a centralized campus in Mohakhali though it plans to shift to its permanent campus in Aftab Nagar near Banosri by the end of 2011.

On 29th November, 2011, Microsoft Students Partners with the help of the Microsoft Bangladesh Team arranged a seminar and an inauguration ceremony of the MSDN AA program at the campus auditorium. Prof. Muniruddin Ahmed, PhD, Honorable Pro-Vice Chancellor of East West University gave his introductory speech in the program titled “Empowering East West University with MSDN AA”. He inspired the students to get involved in career developing and learning programs like MSDN AA and others.

Then Mr. Omi Azad, Developer Evangelist of Microsoft Bangladesh Ltd. gave his speech on MSDN AA program and made students informed about the positive initiatives taken by Microsoft for the betterment of students. He also provided many information about recent Microsoft platforms on which students can work and build their career. Then he introduced all MSPs to the audience and described their future activities in the campus.

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In the venue, T-Shirts by Microsoft were given to students who registered for this program. Then MSP Academic Lead of EWU announced the plan of coming programs and activities to the students. The program ended with huge positive response from the students.

Written by:
Rupok Chowdhury Protik
Campus Lead, Microsoft Student Patners, East West University Campus

MSDN AA Installation Fiesta rocked the NSU campus once again!!

“Nothing is comparable to the joy of getting precious things for free!”

It needs no telling that genuine software are pricey and often beyond of reach especially for the students. Having said that, the software giant Microsoft came forward and took the initiative to offer hundreds of its genuine software and developer tools to the students and academicians for FREE. The program is titled as MSDN Academic Alliance, popularly known as MSDNAA. Under this program, Microsoft and North South University (Bangladesh) has signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to make the latest Microsoft software available in labs, classrooms, and on student PCs. At the same time, MSDNAA aims to build a community of instructors who can share curriculum and other learning resources to support the use of Microsoft’s latest technologies. To make this happen, the “MSDNAA Install Fest” was held in North South University (NSU) during the Spring, 2011 for the first time. The four days (3-6 April’11) long event, organized by the team of Microsoft Student Partners (MSP) created much hype in the campus and was a great success.

Following the legacy of that success, the 2nd MSDNAA Install Fest was scheduled from 20 Nov to 23 Nov, 2011. As part of the preparation, the MSPs of NSU had a meeting and initial plan was outlined. The MSPs were formed in groups and tasks were assigned to them, so that the event gets well organized. The permission from NSU authority was already taken and NSU Information Service Department (ISD) provided us full support by providing multimedia projector, sound system and other logistic supports. Microsoft Bangladesh Limited sent all the promotional materials for the event along with a PC to make the registration process get going, thanks to Omi Azad for his tremendous support and guidance! These days almost everyone is in Facebook, so we created an event for the Install Fest to spread out the words. The promotion got a boost when we projected the vibrant trailer of Imagine Cup 2012.

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On November 20th, we setup the Install Fest booth at our chosen space. While the MSPs were working hard, the track from the Imagine Cup-2012 was rocking the floor. Students were gathering at the booth long before the actual scheduled time (11:00 AM). As soon as the clock hit 11, we started the registration process through five PCs in parallel. All the PCs were equipped with the registration app (developed by MSP, Anam) to keep the information of the registrants. Like the previous Install Fest, all were required to bring the copy of their own NSU ID and must have a Windows Live email ID to get registered. Students came in groups with a happy smile and excitement in their face. MSPs were busy answering the queries and providing assistance. Since the web store for the NSU MSDNAA was ready and the copies of software were available at NSU’s local web resource, we showed the whole process to the new registrants.

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The event went well for rest of the four days; eventually we had to extend it to an hour more because of the requests from the students. In all, Microsoft Academic Alliance truly has set a new tradition in campus by offering tools and resources for the students and would work as catalyst to developing their skills. Personally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all MSPs and other volunteers to make this happen and become a proud part of it.

Written By: Khan Mehedi Al Reaz
Microsoft Student Partners Campus Lead, North South University

MSDNAA Installation Fiesta at KUET

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KUET (Khulna University of Engineering & Technology) signed the MSDN Academic Alliance with Microsoft in 2010 and it was the first public university of Bangladesh to sign this agreement. Students of KUET are already getting the benefits of this agreement. Recently, MSDN Academic Alliance Installation Fiesta 2011 took place for the first time in KUET, in 5 to 7 November, powered by Microsoft Student Partners.

This particular event was hosted to register new students providing them accounts of Microsoft Software Center for the respective campus and make the students aware about the benefits. Hundreds of accounts were registered during the event by the active Microsoft Student Partners in KUET. The venue KUET auditorium was able to attract good number of students as it is an easy place to gather. We were also able to attract the new student who came for admission. It made a good impact on them. Every day sessions of around 6-7 hours were held to collect student names through the day. We found students interested about the Imagine Cup 2012 so we also highlighted the next Bootcamp for Imagine Cup 2012 in KUET.

Microsoft is always willing to lend their hand for the betterment of the tech students throughout the country through MSDN Academic Alliance. And it does show the integrity and devotion put in every event to get closer to the students, enlighten them in the Microsoft way. Microsoft Student Partners are here to help as they always will be.

Written by-

Tanbin Islam Siyam
Campus Lead, KUET
Microsoft Student Partners
Bangladesh

Workshop on Windows Phone 7 SDK @ UIU

For the first time in Microsoft did Workshop on Windows Phone 7 SDK in Bangladesh. Microsoft will do a series of workshops on Windows Phone in academia. Starting from United International University, the workshop will be held in several universities around the country.

Mr. Vincent Quah, DPE Academic and New Markets Lead from Microsoft Singapore started the event by explaining the exciting new features of Microsoft Windows Phone 7.

Mr. Tanzim Saqib, Microsoft MVP did a hands-on session to show the audience how easily developers can develop Windows Phone 7 applications.

Finally Mr. Omi Azad, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft Bangladesh talked on the prospect of Windows Phone 7 application development and how they can sell it using App-Exchange partner and make money.

Over 130 students from UIU participated on the event. Microsoft Student Partners made the event very successful.

Source: Press Release

ওপেনসোর্স ইন ডট নেট - ওপেন ডে

আজ মাইত্রোসফটের আয়োজনে প্রফেশনাল সফটওয়্যার ডেভেলপারদের জন্য হয়ে গেলো ওপেনসোর্স ইন ডট নেট - ওপেন ডে। অনুষ্ঠানে মাইক্রোসফটের প্লাটফর্ম ব্যবহার করে কিভাবে ওপেনসোর্স কমিউনিটিতে কন্ট্রিবিউট করা যায়, সফল এপ্লিকেশন ডেভেলপমেন্টের জন্য ওপেনসোর্স কমিউনিটি থেকে কি ধরনের সাহায্য পাওয়া যেতে পারে, ওপেনসোর্স কমিউনিটিতে যোগদান করে কিভাবে নিজের প্রজেক্টকে শক্তিশালী করা যায় ইত্যাদি বিষয় নিয়ে আলোচনা করা হয়। মাইক্রোসফট এশিয়া প্যাসিফিক ডিপিই লিড ভিনসেন্ট কোয়াহ্ শুভেচ্ছা বক্তব্যের মাধ্যমে অনুষ্ঠান আরম্ভ করেন, পরে ওয়াইল্ডনেস অফ ওপেনসোর্স সফটওয়্যার ইন ডট নেট বিষয় নিয়ে আলোচনা করেন তানজিম সাকিব এবং ডাটা ড্রাইভেন টেস্ট অটোমেশন: এ ওয়াটিন (WatiN) এপ্রোচ আলোচনা নিয়ে মঞ্চে আসেন রিজওয়ানুর রশিদ। তারপরে স্টার্টিং এন ওপেনসোর্স প্রজেক্ট ফ্রম গ্রাউন্ড আপ বিষয়ক আলোচনা নিয়ে মঞ্চে আসেন কাজী মঞ্জুর রশিদ এবং তারপরে আশরাফুল আলম জয় এসে আলোচনা করেন গেটিং পিপল এক্সাইটেড এবাউট ইওর ওপেনসোর্স প্রজেক্ট বিষয়ে।

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মধ্যাহ্ণভোজ বিরতির পরে নো ব্রেইনার প্রজেক্ট শোকেইস করেন তানজিম সাকিব এবং লন্ডন থেকে লাইভ মিটিং এর মাধ্যমে ড্রপথিংস্ প্রজেক্ট শোকেইস এবং বুটস্ট্রেপিং এন ওপেনসোর্স প্রজেক্ট এস এন বিজনেস কেইস প্রজেক্ট নিয়ে আলোচনা করেন ওমর আল যাবির মিশো। এরপর মঞ্চে আশরাফুল আলম জয় এবং ওয়াহিদ বিন আহসান এমপ্লোই ইনফো স্টার্টার কিট প্রোজেক্ট শোকেইস করেন। সব শেষে মাইক্রোসফট বাংলাদেশের ডেভেলপার এভাঞ্জালিস্ট অমি আজাদ মঞ্চে আসেন সমাপনি বক্তব্য দিতে এবং ডট নেট কোডেক্স প্রোগ্রামিং কম্পিটিশন ঘোষনা দিতে।

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আলোচনা চলাকালীন প্রশ্নকারীদেরকে ওয়াইম্যাক্স মোডেম, ৩২ গিগা ফ্ল্যাশ ড্রাইভ, মাইক্রোসফট প্রেসের শিক্ষামুলক বই সহ বিভিন্ন ধরনের উপহার প্রদান করেন বক্তারা এবং অনুষ্ঠান শেষে লটারীর মাধ্যমে একটি উইন্ডোস ফোন সেভেন মোবাইল ফোন উপহার দেয়া হয়। মাইক্রোসফট প্রতিনিধিরা জানান যে কমিউনিটির উন্নয়নের জন্য এখন থেকে মাঝে মাঝেই এরকম আয়োজন করা হবে।

Press Release

MSDN AA Installation Fiesta Held in KU Campus

It hasn't been long since Microsoft and Khulna University signed the "MSDN Academic Alliance" to ensure better learning facilities for the students of the university. Under the alliance, students from Khulna University would get exclusive access to hundreds of applications, platforms and development tools from the software giant, Microsoft. The alliance aimed at making students aware of the cutting edge technologies while allowing them to play with all the latest tools and toys. Following the alliance, "MSDN Academic Alliance Installation Fiesta" was held in KU from the 15th to the 22nd September, 2011. The event was houseful weeklong. Students stood in line to get themselves registered and take the advantage of the MSDN subscription they got in return.

The "Installation Fiesta" was held in the seminar library of CSE Discipline, a prominent place with mass access. We, the Microsoft Student Partners in the institute started planning and making necessary arrangements from at least one week ago. We re-arranged the the seminar library to make it more spacious and accommodating than before. We also started viral promotion of the upcoming event. CSE Discipline kindly dedicated a PC for the registration purposes. Microsoft Bangladesh sent us the HDD with local copies of the software long before the event. We reorganized the contents on it for better navigation and even easier collection of the software. When we received the event banners, we hoisted it in the key places in the campus. These banners fueled the promotional activities to a new extent.

Finally came 15th September. The announced time for opening was 2.30PM but we noticed a crowd started growing from 2PM. Right on time, we opened the registration booth for all. Students were instructed to form a queue. They had to bring a photocopy of their student ID card for verification purposes. They entered one by one. MSPs checked the ID card and allowed access to the registration terminal. The students submitted their personal details alongside a valid and active Windows Live ID. MSPs were always there to provide any kind of assistance to the registrants. The participants wore an excited look on their faces and the atmosphere had an air of celebration. Students stood in line, chatted, joked, laughed, registered and enjoyed the event to their hearts content.

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Faculty members and the staff also got registered in the weeklong event. We arranged a priority queue for the respected faculty members considering their busy schedules. They also looked satisfied about the event.

The participants expressed their satisfaction and excitement with the event. Aminul Islam Imon, a student of CSE Discipline said - "Microsoft definitely has built the industry leading tools but it was not affordable for me in the past. I am extremely happy that I can now have a genuine copy of Visual Studio 2010 Professional - free of charge! It's just amazing!". Another student, Ahsan Parvez said - "I would like to thank Microsoft for providing the XNA toys! I just can't help start working on a game of mine". The faculty members also expressed their gratitude towards Microsoft for providing the tools and teaching materials.

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The event ran from the 15th to the 22nd September, non stop. The MSPs worked really hard to handle the crowd and avail their best possible support for the participants. On this happy occasion, I would like to thank them for all the hard work and efforts they gave. Special thanks to our MSP, Bilash for taking snaps of the event. I would also like to thank the students who made the event successful by attending.  I am grateful to you, everyone for making the event a success. I express my personal gratitude to Omi Azad from Microsoft Bangladesh for the constant reviews, guidance and recommendations. Thank you Microsoft, you rock!

Abu Ashraf Masnun,
Campus Lead, Microsoft Student Partners
Khulna University.

MSDN AA Installation Fiesta @ UIU

The first ever Microsoft Developers Network Academic Alliance (MSDN AA) Installation Fiesta program has been held at UIU premises at 21-22 & 23-24 August 2011. UIU has recently joined with this program and successfully completed their first big occasion of MSDNAA. The program had started at 10.30 AM on 21th August. The Head of the Dept. of CSE,UIU; Dr. Hasan Sarwar inaugurated the fest along with the Developer Evangelist of Microsoft, Mr. Omi Azad and S.M. Abdullah, lecturer, Dept. of CSE, UIU. All the Microsoft Students Partners (MSP) from UIU were also present by that time. After the inauguration, the install fest started with the help of the MSP’s. There was a nice booth at the ground floor of UIU for the fest with necessary banners and festoons. MSP’s were always at that booth for 4 days to help out and let the students know about the registration and process of installing. The feedback was unexpected from the students during the 4 days of installation fiesta. There were about 600+ students registered during the install fest only at the Dhanmondi Campus of UIU which was really out of expectation for all the MSPs.

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Written by-

Rafiul Sabbir
Campus Lead, UIU
Microsoft Student Partners, Bangladesh

TechFire Journey Began

TechFire is an initiative taken by Ahmed Niaz Morshed, Country Lead - MSP Bangladesh, with a vision for helping the youngsters of Bangladesh to know about all the aspects Information Technology and decide if they should consider IT as their career.
An initiative like this was never taken before in this country which is solely dedicated to build up the future of Information Technology industry in Bangladesh. It's one common place where all the Bangladeshi big fishes in IT sector get together to share their view, knowledge and perspective with the youngsters of Bangladesh so that the school and college students can make up their mind and take the right decision before they finally choose their career path and get into the appropriate University program.

The very first event of TechFire was held on June 11, 2011 at Zahir Raihan Cultural Center in front of the brightest minds from almost all the schools and colleges of Old Dhaka. Honorable Member of Parliament Mr. Mizanur Rahman Khan Dipu (Dhaka-6) was present as the Chief Guest of the event which was hosted by Mr. Omi Azad, Developer Evangelist at Microsoft Bangladesh Ltd. The impact-loving technology rock stars Kazi Mamun, Hassan Tanvir Mansur and Tahmid Jawad from Microsoft Student Partners Bangladesh and the industry experts from both Microsoft and LAMP platforms were there to enlighten the youngsters from Old Dhaka. The program was started with the opening speech from the initiator of TechFire Ahmed Niaz Morshed. The Initiator of Wikipedia Bangla Mahay Alam Khan and the CEO of iMesh Multimedia Mir Sahed Ali were also present among the students.

Mr. Mizanur Rahman Khan (Dipu), Member of the Parliament inaugurated the event. In his speech, he appreciated initiative and asked the students to listen very carefully and learn from the industry leaders.

The Speaker and Subjects were-

• Hassan Tanvir Mansur – Windows 7 and the Ultimate Features
• Zikrul Ahsan Shawon – Customer Relationship Manager
• Khan Reaz - What can be DONE when Technology is FUN
• Kazi Mamun – Microsoft KODU
• Tanzim Saqib – Show me the Money
• Omi Azad – Power of Students

After the event we distributed crest to the speakers and organizers, and gifts to the participants.

TechFire is going to be a series of workshops held once/twice a quarter, but every time in a different location of Bangladesh. The main target of this program is to educate the school/college level students about Information Technology. So that the teenagers get the chance to realize if IT is for them or not. And the university students get to know about the latest technologies available for them to change the world!

Event collaborated by i-Mash Multimedia.

Imagine Cup 2011 – Bangladesh National Finals

In Bangladesh this the very first time we organized Imagine Cup Software Design at national level. We started the journey by doing the first Imagine Cup boot camp in North South University in December 2010. Then we went to 10 different universities across the country to educate the students on Imagine Cup through boot camps.

MSPs, MVPs helped us in the boot camps time to time and introduced many latest technologies/industry standards to the students. Imagine Cup got very good attention from the students of different universities; in terms of registration numbers, Bangladesh became 9th worldwide and 2nd in Asia Pacific. The deadline for project submission was 20 February 2011. 121 projects were submitted from 13 different universities under different categories, which is huge response as a 1st time launch in Bangladesh. After all procedure of this competition Imagine cup Bangladesh choose 10 projects that are fighting for local championship.

To make general people aware of Imagine cup, we participated in BASIS SoftExpo 2011 in February & inspired visitors to register on our portal. We received fantastic response! Approximately 1000 students registered themselves IC portal from that location. MSPs were there round the clock to assist the visitors with the registration process and give them information and background in Imagine Cup.

We also arranged a Mega Boot Camp where we invited all the teams and discuss more on how they can improve and what may help them to represent their solution and get good marks from the judges. MVPs, ISV leaders gave very nice guideline to the participants.

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Country Manager Mr. Feroz Mahmud and Hon'ble State Minister Architect Yeafesh Osman is giving their welcome speech

On this connection a prize giving ceremony has held in Bangabandhu International conference Center on 10th May, 2011. Architect Yeafesh Osman, Hon'ble State Minister, Ministry of Science and Information & Communication Technology, Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh was present on that occasion as chief guest. The country manager of Microsoft Bangladesh Feroz Mahmud was also present there.

Minister says, “It’s my humblest honor that Microsoft gave me the opportunity to meet the highest talents of our county who took the challenge to solve global problems. Today Bangladesh is proud of them and grateful to Microsoft for opening doors of such opportunity. I believe our children will do good in the international round too. Without such opportunity from the corporate it’s hard to hone local talents. We expect other corporates will start such culture and our kids roar like a tiger in international IT industry.”

Teams and Projects

2nd Runner Up

Team: littleBrains, Project: X-Able

littleBrains team members are receiving their gift from Hon'ble State Minister, Architect Yeafesh Osman
and Microsoft Bangladesh Country Manager, Feroz Mahmud

This is what littleBrais says about their project: We are aiming to improve the quality of life of those humans who have disabilities. These people are unable to communicate with the real world and somehow they live in a disconnected world. Imagine Cup theme enforces to think about our responsibilities for the society for the development, empowerment regarding mental, physical health. Our target is to omitting the communication gap of these people and enabling them to connect them with the real world with their limited abilities. Let’s improvise the living quality of those people who have disabilities using technology.

We are designed a Windows 7 Desktop Application X-Able based on Assistive Technology. It manages to connect these people who are suffering from different disabilities. Enable these people to communicate with the world with their limited abilities. Limited abilities like voice command face movement or even eye movement. X-Able will acquire different inputs for different perspective and will perform appropriate actions.

By Using X-Able these people can accomplish different activities like talking, communicating, chatting, alarming with others etc. This application enables people to perform tasks that they were unable to accomplish, or had great difficulty accomplishing. We are also developing this application with embedded features that makes it more worth, more usable, meaningful to the corresponding users.

1st Runner Up

Team: SuperNova, Project: thirdHand

SuperNova team members are receiving their gift from Hon'ble State Minister, Architect Yeafesh Osman
and Microsoft Bangladesh Country Manager, Feroz Mahmud

thirdHand, an unique software to help the communication between the physically disabled persons to the computer. thirdHand is very easy to use. It reduces the cost of the alternative input devices for the disabled.

This is what SuperNova says about their project: Main objective of our software is to reduce cost of the alternative input devices for disabled. The device for using our software includes a push switch and two LEDs. Our software will observe the movement of LEDs through a web cam and will act as an alternative input (Mouse & Keyboard) device. Physically disabled persons can easily operate this device and software where the available systems are very costly. Our software will use only a web cam and the device which can be constructed by $0.5 only. This may be appropriate for the third world countries like Bangladesh.

Champion

Team: Team Rapture, Project ThirdEye

Team Rapture team members are receiving their gift from Hon'ble State Minister, Architect Yeafesh Osman,
Microsoft Bangladesh Country Manager, Feroz Mahmud and Telerik Product Manager, Mehfuz Hossain

In today’s world, smartphones and cloud computing blessed all of us with enormous power and we are thankful to this wonderful advancement of technology. But have we ever wondered if visually impaired people can take advantage of these technologies like we do? So far, the answer is “No, they can’t”. Therefore, we thought of making this smartphone device an eye for those people. We call it the ‘ThirdEye’. With ‘ThirdEye’, we will help them. We will help them to be free.

This is what Team Rapture says about their project: According to WHO, about 314 million people are vision impaired worldwide, 45 million of them are blind. The females are at more risk. About 87% impaired are in the developing countries. Therefore, a big number of the talented and potential people in the developing countries cannot move from one place to another at ease. They are also unable to make use of the latest technologies and the information superhighway, which keeps them from contributing to the economic development. Enabling them to communicate seamlessly and use the blessings of technology, we can take a giant step towards ending hunger and poverty.

Our solution ‘ThirdEye’ is a smartphone application which comes with:

• Camera helps vision impaired people with voice and image processing to assist walking, describe surroundings

• When put on a spot or towards a direction, the impaired hears details about it.

• Special UI comes with vibration and speech feedback.

• OCR to describe any text.

• Impaired gets all common internet services.

• Voice command for storing favorite route/spot and UI navigation.

• Basic phone operations (calls, SMS)

• Braille keypad for input.

• Application server for guided walk, requesting help from authenticated persons

On Media/Press

All the major TV Channels did news on the National Grand Finale event. I must mention some of their names- Ekushey TV, Shomoy News, ATN News, Boishakhi TV, Desh TV, Channel i.

Ekushey TV is working on a 26 minute program on Imagine Cup, they will focus on the history, background of Imagine Cup WW and top 3 teams initiative and plan with their projects.

ABC Radio, Radio Aamar did live interview of the minister, country manager and champion on their news.

Most of the national daily newspapers published news on the event and 2 top circulated newspapers are published a full page coverage of the contest and interview of the top 3 team on the next weekend issue.

S2B

During the judgment session Ashraful Alam Joy, Chief Architect, DEsme Inc. mentioned “I’m hiring developers and seeing codes since last 9 years. These boys may have small problem but I did not expect this quality output from students of this age. DEsme’s doors are always open for them and they are invited to join any time they want.

Microsoft Imagine Cup 2011 - Software Design Bangladesh is a huge success. Architect Yeafesh Osman, Hon'ble State Minister, Ministry of Science and Information & Communication Technology, Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh appreciated Microsoft’s initiative for developing the students and their skills and wishes that Microsoft will continue the same in future.

Article compiled from many sources.

Imagine Cup 2011 (Bangladesh) Boot Camp–A Very Successful Event

This is the very first time Microsoft is Doing Imagine Cup in Bangladesh. Over 5000 students registered on http://bangladesh.imaginecup.com. 121 teams submitted their proposals and now 10 teams are fighting the battle to solve real world problems.

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To see what they are doing, how they are doing, how they can improve, we called all the teams to participate on a Mega Boot Camp today. Most of the teams participated to share their innovative ideas.

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To give proper guidance to the teams, we invited MVPs and Industry Experts. You can read more about the event from our MVP’s blog.

Empowering the students of IUB

The Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) was established in 1993. The motto of the University "Teacheth Man That Which He knew Not" is taken from the fifth verse of Sura Alak of the Holy Quran. The University has 4 schools, School of Business, School of Engineering & Computer Science, School of Environmental Science & Management and School of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences, offering 4-year undergraduate programmers in Business Studies, Economics, Engineering, Computer Science, English Literature, Media & Communication, Anthropology and Environmental Science & Management. IUB also offers 15 graduate programmers at the master’s level in Business Administration, Computer Science, Telecommunication Engineering, Software Engineering, Computer Networks and Communications, Public Health, Development Studies, and Environmental Science and Management. IUB employs a total of 180 full time and 76 adjunct faculty. Out of the full time faculty, approximately 44 have Ph.D. degrees from North America and Europe. IUB currently has more than 4000 undergraduate and graduate students. In 2011, IUB has shifted to it's own campus at Bashundhara R/A.

On 7th April, 2011, Microsoft student Partners at IUB Campus, arranged a seminar entitled “Empowering the Students of IUB” in order to create an alliance between Microsoft & IUB under MSDN AA program.  Professor Mohammed Anwer, director of School of Engineering & Computer Science (SECS) had the welcome note. After That Omi Azad, Developer Evangelist at Microsoft Bangladesh, Ltd, has introduced the students of IUB with MSDN AA. Then the Vice Chancellor (In Charge) Prof. M. Omar Rahman had his speech. Then we signed MSDN Academic Alliance agreement papers with IUB. Vice Chancellor (In Charge) Prof. M. Omar Rahman signed the MSDN AA agreement paper on behalf of his university.

Written By:
Mehedee Hasan
Campus Lead, Microsoft Student Partners
IUB Campus

Empowering the Students of United International University

United International University (UIU) is a private university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The university established in 2003. It is established as a concern of United Group. The University Grants Commission approved the academic program of UIU on 10 October 2003 and the Government permission was granted on 2 June 2003.

Today Microsoft Bangladesh and United International University have signed MSDNAA agreement. Omi Azad, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft Bangladesh and Niaz Murshed did 3 presentations on the event-

• Power of Students – Omi Azad
• Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch – Niaz Morshed
• Imagine Cup 2011 Software Design Bangladesh – Omi Azad

Omi Azad of Microsoft Bangladesh is handing over the papers to Prof. Dr. M. Rezwan Khan, The Vice Chancellor, United International University.