Event Info

Join Colin Melia, Microsoft Regional Director, Microsoft MVP and Principal Architect at Ace of Clouds, for an evening of Information, Inspiration and Motivation… along with free pizza… and information on how to earn and compete for prizes.

This event is targeted at professional developers, hobbyists, students and/or academic faculty.

At Microsoft’s recent Build conference, Microsoft solidified its plans from the client to the cloud following the launch of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.  It outlined huge opportunities for developers to create applications for Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Office 2013 and Browsers, as well as backend solutions on Windows Azure.

At the evening’s event you can learn about:

• Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows Phone 8 – including hardware options.
• Getting started with development on Windows Store Apps for Windows 8/RT and Windows Phone Store Apps for Windows Phone 8.
• How easy it is to use Windows Azure, for FREE.
• How you can earn prizes for developing apps!
• The new HTML/JS application model and app store for Office 2013!
• The latest strongly-typed language from Microsoft that you may already be using - TypeScript
• How you can compete for a Microsoft Surface by building Office 2013 apps!
• Further in-depth events coming to your community.
• Training opportunities.
• … and last, but not least, how you can get funds for the community group and a gift for yourself too!

Presenter Bio

Colin Melia is known as an architect, trainer, speaker and author with deep and broad knowledge of the latest Microsoft technologies, proven problem solving skills, hands-on solution creation ingenuity and the ability to communicate rich and complex ideas at both the developer and board level.  He also has the role of Microsoft Regional Director and has received the Microsoft MVP award for several years.

Using his XAML and .NET expertise, his company Ace of Clouds put apps in the Windows Phone Store and Windows Store for Windows 8, and now offers app development and developer training for Windows 8.  In recent years he also developed and delivered the first Windows Phone 7 boot camp tour in North America and has solutions running live on Windows Azure.

Over the last decade he has developed award-winning simulation technology with 3D UI, cloud-based learning portals and workflow-driven BI systems.

Colin has 18 years of hands-on experience delivering solutions across finance, e-learning, telecoms and Internet communications industries in areas of rich UI with Windows Store Apps, WPF & Silverlight, cloud development with Azure and BI with SQL Server, and with in-depth knowledge of core technologies such as .NET, OData, WCF, WF, LINQ and WIF.  His work is used by companies such as O2, HP, Intel, Microsoft & WPP.  He also created the first streaming video community site with Windows Media.

He speaks regularly with his British accent at conferences, events and code camps for Microsoft and community organizations.  His sessions, video tutorials, interviews, articles and reference materials have been featured on .NET Rocks, dnrTV, Microsoft TechDays, DevTeach, Microsoft webcasts, Mobile Developer Magazine, DZone and his blog.