Posted in Project Management | Nov 28, 2013 | by Michael Benda
As Tiare wrote in her previous post, the last days were filled with presentations and speeches. We started off on Friday at the Open Days of the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Vienna, and had a successful finish yesterday featuring Philipp’s tech-talk at the Microsoft Education and Innovation Conference.
But first things first: The flight to Vienna. We were amused and delighted to see the preparations our carrier made for Christmas.
The next morning Schein invaded the Technikum. This is the place where the development of Schein started – the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Vienna. We took advantage of the Open Days, where interested students could freely roam the building, and took hold of the Game Lab.
The whole day we spoke about how we started our career in these halls and every visitor could peek into the world of Schein.
Admittedly, a day of standing and talking is somewhat tiring, so we enjoyed the quiet weekend that followed. Still preparations had to be made, so soon we found ourselves in a Viennese café — assembling, preparing and tweaking our presentation.
Tuesday dawned and so did the Microsoft Education and Innovation Conference in Vienna, where we were invited as Keynote speakers. Proud as we were, not even the snowstorm that threatened to embrace us on the way could impede our motivation.
Anthony Salcito – vice president of education at Microsoft – gave a visionary speech about the transformation of education due to technical advances. The talk was given in a big conference hall full of aspiring teachers coming from Austrian schools and universities…
… and I am glad (and kind of satisfied – I have to admit) that although they sometimes won’t show it: teachers are humans too :)
Following this, our Keynote presentation took place. Unfortunately, while talking, none of us had a free hand to take pictures therefore I try to make up for it with this picture of my breakfast:
To top it off, the day had a perfectly fitting end: Vienna-Game-Dev Meeting at Café Stein. New and old faces and one or two sips of Austrian beer.
The next day brought a bright blue sky, huge buffets at the conference and Philipp’s speech about using game development as a starting point for programming beginners. Hereby he went into the advantages of targeting Windows Phone (which actually seems to be much easier to tackle than Android or even iOS).
So for the first time we were at a conference not as part of the audience, but as active participants in the program, which is a great thing. Thank you to those at Microsoft who have madet this possible and cheers to all of you pushing us forward to new heights.
