Hello world,
It's been a while since I entered the MSP'09 program. For those who don't know
it's an educational program that gives great opportunities to students majoring in disciplines
related to technology. Well, and as someone once said, true knowledge has no price...
I could write a dozen of pages about some other things that have no price in life, but it is revelant to say here
that friendship, and certain moments in our lifes have no price either. In these past weeks I met people from north
to the south of Portugal.
A group of forty people passioned about technology, party animals, interesting, funny
and with a lot ideas to make the difference and above all create a better world.
People and the moments that we pass together don't have any
price.
Since then, a lot of things are changing in my life, I hope on the right ways. The MSP'09 group had together in two major
events, Microsoft Dreamway at Centro Cultural de Belém and on a Team Building event at Póvoa do Lanhoso.
THE TEAM BUILDING @ PÓVOA DO LANHOSO
Before I went to the Team Building Event, I only met the MSP' Leads, César, Vanessa, André and Nuno at the Microsoft headquarters interview. Soon enough
me, Nuno Martins, Norberto and Filipe Delgado where on the highway (not to hell) to arrive at Póvoa do Lanhoso. The
trip was fast and the conversation between us, didn't stop between the all ride. Our GPS went low battery near 20km the spot, but we still arrived on time to dinner.
In short time, everyone was around a fire light, talking... i only slept half an hour that night. The bell rang at 7am
and woke up everyone in the quarters (Chaves gives no mercy!). Only in the mourning I noticed that the landscape that
evolved everyone was fantastic. All the group went to have the breakfast (with a little delay). After the breakfast
we had welcome presentations to the program, good speeches about interesting technologies.
The all afternoon was spent making team games, they where important, showed us how important team work is.
That night, after dinner everyone gather again, we played a little bit of music (or something close to that, poor
people who listened us!) with some guitars and percussions everyone where in a great atmosphere. That night i only
slept 2 hours... and yes, i had to make something like 10 coofee breaks in the speeches of the sunday morning.
Did I already told you that the speeches where excellent? Well, probably is better to say it again.
Last day the Leads gave us a game that evolved us all, in a sheet of paper we had a funny situation of our lifes
and we had to fill the name of the MSP that situation, the prize was an XBOX360. In secret we talked between each other and filled the paper to give the prize to Olga (MSP from Universidade de Coimbra) little daughter that was with us that weekend.
It was nice to see that her daughter was happy by our side...
We played some other games in the afternoon, and in the end of the day, everyone returned home,
with memories of a great weekend and a great group of friends.
By the way, a reporter from Mundo Universitário where there
that weekend and wrote an article in the paper, that you can read here.
DREAMWAY @ CCB
Another big event day, me, Nuno Martins, Filipe and Norberto (Malta das Beiras) fast enough arrived at Centro Cultural
de Belém. We left Nuno home earlier to take breakfast at the Pastéis de Belém bakery (if you are in Lisbon, you have to make
a pit stop there).
After that nice breakfast we head towards CCB, not everyone where there, but was nice to see again some MSP's and meet other
MSP's from other years.
I was hoping more technical speeches, but in a general way they where good. I liked a lot of Nuno Godinho speech about
development on rich applications in Silverlight 2.0.
After lunch, we watched Steve Ballmer's keynote speech and Miguel Caldas on Internet Explorer 8.0. Ballmer, talked about some of the Microsft future goals,
to provide conditions and better ways to a simple computer user, to a developer.
In interview to SIC Noticias, he told something that I have to agree too.
That the Magalhães project, is an unique initiative in a global scale to promote the access to technology to young kids.
The day ended with me and André trying to get the information of my SD 4GB card. In the middle of the morning presentations I was
told to go shot the speeches for Microsoft. I brought a Sigma 18-200mm, an ideal lens for that kind of stuff, but the SD Card broke or
something and we couldn't get the photos.
In the trip way back home Filipe and Nuno Martins gave a private concert in the car, when I had a little more free time I will put the .mp3 here in ZoomIn.
To finish, I wanna say with all the words, that I'm proud of being a Microsoft Student Partner and to be part of this great group of people.
Thanks, and see you around.
PS - Anyone wants to figure why Escovinha is it his hands in the air on both photos? 