There’s some interesting stuff going on in the Canadian tech world this week, on nearly opposite ends of the country. I’ll be at both, starting in Vancouver from Monday to Thursday, and ending the back back home in Toronto.
TechDays 2010, Vancouver (Tuesday and Wednesday)
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Microsoft Canada will be hosting the TechDays conference in the new West Building of the Vancouver Convention Centre. TechDays features content from Microsoft’s biggest (and most expensive) conferences, updated and delivered by local developers and IT pros, all at an incredibly reasonable price – a few hundred dollars, as opposed to a few thousand.
TechDays is your best chance to learn how to make the most of Microsoft’s platforms tools and technologies. It’s also a great way to get to meet your Canadian Microsoft team as well as your fellow techies.
If you’re attending TechDays, come say hi! I’m the guy with the accordion, and I’ll be demoing and working on Windows Phone 7 applications in the Collaboration Lounge.
We’ll be devoting a lot of bandwidth to TechDays this week, and I thought I’d point out something else happing at the same time, a continent away…
Mobile Innovation Week, Toronto (All Week)
If only I could be in two places at the same time! Alas, the complicated business of booking large conferences like TechDays requires us to find venues a year in advance, and certainly well before the dates of this year’s Mobile Innovation Week in Toronto, which takes place all week.
As you’re going to hear me say quite often for the next little while: Canada has always punched above its weight class in tech, and especially when it comes to the phone. After all, this is the home of Alexander Graham Bell, and he has a strong claim to state, as the Windows 7 commercials put it, that the phone was his idea. Since his time, Canada’s been making significant contributions to the telephone, and it’s getting highlighted in Mobile Innovation Week.
Mobile Innovation Week brings together and showcases the leaders in mobile tech, from idea people to developers to designers to institutions, all coming together exchange ideas about the future of mobile. It’s made up of many events, including:
- IN|10: The Interactive Exchange (Sunday – Tuesday)
- MXD 2010: Mobile Experience + Design (Tuesday)
- Mobile Biz Bootcamp (Wednesday)
- Mobile ThinkTank (Wednesday – Thursday)
- Mobile Media World 10 (Thursday – Friday)
- FITC: Flash in the Can (Friday – Saturday)
Windows Phone 7 at FITC on Friday and Saturday
I’m cutting my Vancouver trip short to be at FITC on Friday and Saturday, where I, along with some other Microsoft developers and evangelists, will be minding the Windows Phone 7 booth. We’ll have Windows Phone 7 devices and developer tools for you to try out, and we’d be more than happy to answer your questions!
We’ll also have a presenter there: Mark Arteaga will be doing two presentations on Windows Phone 7 development. If you wanted to learn how to code for this exciting new platform and you’ll be at FITC, don’t miss his sessions.