Dev Idol comes to Tech·Ed!
Do you have what it takes?
Dev Idol is coming to Tech·Ed Africa, do you have what it takes to be our winner?
We’re looking for the rock star (presenter) of the future! If you’re passionate about technology and development show us!
Enter our Dev Idol competition at Tech·Ed Africa, strut your stuff on stage and wow our judges and the developer community with your talent.
Our panel of judges will select the winning Dev Idol who will receive:
- The opportunity to present a technical breakout session at Tech·Ed 2011
- An Xbox 360
Two runners-up will each receive:
- Entry to Tech·Ed 2011
How is this going to work?
You will have the opportunity to submit presentations to us, we will list them on our blog and ask the developer community to vote for their favourites. The top 6 presentations, as voted for by the developers out there, will be selected to compete in Dev Idol. You will then deliver your sessions for our judges to score you. The winners will be announced once the judges have tallied their results.
- When? 18 October 2010 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM
- Where? Room B2, Tech·Ed Africa 2010
- How do I enter? Contact us with your proposed presentation. Please include:
- Your name
- Your email address
- The title of your presentation
- A description for your presentation
- Can anyone enter? Almost anyone
You must be attending Tech·Ed but you must not be presenting at Tech·Ed – we’re looking for new hotshot speakers! - When is the deadline for presentation submissions?
You can submit your presentations until 12:00 PM, 13 October 2010. Update: submissions are now closed! But you can go ahead and vote for your favourite presentations. - What topics can I cover? You can speak about anything related to development – tools, technologies, practices, something new, something old, something cool – anything!
- How long must my presentation be? Each presentation must be a maximum of 10 minutes long.
- When will voting start? Voting will start on 13 October 2010 once all submissions have been received. Vote using our online poll (only one vote per person).
- When will voting end? Voting will end at 12:00 PM on 18 October 2010 (yup, that’s during Tech·Ed).
- When will I know if my presentation has been selected? We will announce the top 6 presentations at 1:00 PM on 18 October 2010 (yes, that’s during Tech·Ed and you’ll need to be prepared up front!)
- How will presentations be judged? We will have a panel of 4 judges who will rate your presentation on: mastery of your subject, the quality of your demonstrations, slides and code and your ability to get your point across. The audience will also vote on their favourite presenter.
- What you should bring: Yourself(!) and your PowerPoint presentation and demo code on a USB drive.
- What will be provided: A laptop with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate and SQL Server Express 2008 will be available. You will have access to the Internet, but it’s recommended to plan your presentation without this. If your presentation requires the installation of other software, please bring your own laptop (if your bring your own, set your screen resolution to 1280 x 720).
Meet your Dev Idol MC and Judges:
 Your MC for the evening needs no introduction. Microsoft South Africa's very own, Ahmed Salijee, has been a mainstay at Tech·Ed during his 15 years at Microsoft. Since Ahmed has been a stalwart presenter at Tech·Ed and other Microsoft events throughout his career, contestants might be comforted by the fact that he’s our master of ceremonies and not one of our judges | |
| Judge #1: |  Tim Huckaby, visiting South Africa for the very first time and a self-confessed soft-touch will surely be trying to win favour with the local crowd and go easy on our presenters, or will he? |
| Judge #2: |  Bart De Smet won the inaugural Speaker Idol event at Tech·Ed Europe way back when. Bart’s a pretty relaxed guy - will you be able to impress him? |
| Judge #3: |  Another new face in South Africa, Katrien De Graeve knows exactly what's required to present at major events. Will you be able to match her high expectations? |
| Judge #4: |  Microsoft South Africa's Kath Roderick will looking for flair and style to come through from your presentation. She's a pretty tough critic - do you have what it takes to make her smile? |
But I just like to watch…
If you aren’t up for the challenge of presenting but still want to be involved you can still join in the fun:
- Vote for your favourite presentations – details will be provided on 13 October 2010
- Join us at Tech·Ed on 18 October 2010 from 6:30 PM in Room B2 and support the brave presenters, have a bit of fun and see who reigns supreme!
The Contenders
(to be updated as new entries are received)
Update: Entries are now closed! Please vote now for your favourite presentations!
| Title | Description | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
Win-Mote 7 - Turn your Windows Phone 7 into a Remote Control |
See how to use a Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight as a remote control for all your DLNA or UPnP devices in your home. Select the media, the device and hit play! |
William Brander |
| Best Practices in F# | Tail End Recursion using Functional Magic. | Mark Pearl |
| I.T From Fresh Eyes | The ups and downs of a student wanting to advance the world technologically - a student studying I.T. in South Africa | Monde Mbatha |
| jQuery Dialog - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly | A jQuery UI Dialog - that posts back to a page, saving data to the session. Pros and Cons considered. | Jason Mulryan |
| Introducing the WebMatrix Beta 2 to Beginners | This is the real beginning for the Beginners. We cannot be beginners forever, at some point we need the right Tool to begin. | Otsile Kole |
| The 10 Habits of World Class Pioneers of Technology | Learn the 10 habits to apply when using cutting edge Microsoft technologies like SharePoint 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 to position yourself as a world-class pioneer of technology. | Johan Olivier |
| Generate & Secure those DeepZoom Images | Take a journey into using DeepZoom in a Silverlight + ASP.NET project without precompiling in the DeepZoom Composer. | Brendon Page |
| Making Outlook 2010 BCM Usable | In the environment where business always demands more for less, we look at using Microsoft Outlook 2010 Business Contact Manager as a viable mashup of CRM, BI and collaboration tools. We discuss populating BCM from existing accounting, HR and operational Management systems such as Pastel Accounting and Great Plains; and dive into the challenges of visualizing this treasure of data in a consolidated view on the web. | Howard Diesel & Kevin McKelvin |
| Expression Blend Integration with Adobe Photoshop | How to Import a Photoshop file into Expression Blend to easily create a visually rich UI. | Jayd Page |
| Slow query? | Become the Sherlock Homes of the SQL World by learning how to get to the root cause of those slow running SQL queries. | Russell Brander |
This will be a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to seeing people rising to the challenge, getting involved and enjoying Dev Idol! See you there.
- Dario