Third Shelf

Tech-ed South Africa 2008!

This was my first Tech-ed ever and what a fantastic experience! The event kicked off on 3 August 2008 at the ICC in Durban for three days.

Arriving at the airport we noticed this little oddity in the spelling of experience. What a laugh; I hope Microsoft gets it right next time! What they did get right however was a very well organised conference. No transport problems and they surely did look after our stomachs very well. So, maybe they can’t spell but they can surely organise an event!

The Opening Keynote was spectacular. Lasers, dancers and a whole lot of action. There were approximately 2200 people attending this event, of which 14% was female.

A great party was sponsored by Dimension Data called the Speed of Sound, which carried on way into the night. A superior live band called Prime Circle was there to get the event started on the right note. Good choice Microsoft!

A beach party was sponsored by the local municipality of Durban. What an awesome time. Karen Zoid was there live in action to entertain a bunch of IT people. I’m sure it must have been a strange sight for her to see that IT people can actually rock!

For the Closing Keynote, Stephen Attenborough, the commercial director of Virgin Galactic was the presenter and talked about their latest spaceship SpaceshipTwo and Mothership Eve. All-in-all a great conference. In the next upcoming posts I’ll share some information from the sessions that I attended.