My Microsoft Build 2018 Experience

Last week, I had the immense pleasure of attending the Microsoft Build conference along with the Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) Summit. This is my experience.

Selected from a diverse group of over 2,500 students worldwide who are passionate about leading, educating, and helping others, almost 50 of us descended on the Emerald City of Seattle to meet up, share advice on how we operate in our own countries, and most of all — learn more about the technologies and software we spend our time advocating and teaching to others.

Day 0

The week began with a dinner exclusively for Microsoft Student Partners to mingle and get to know each other. On one of the tables was a world map where we were told to mark where we had come from and write a greeting in our local language. As a Londoner, my greeting was a little boring but I was taken away by the range of far-flung places we had all come from. From Japan to Brazil and Canada to Australia, we truly covered all four corners of the Earth which made for some fascinating conversations about culture and life in general. What stood out to me the most was how motivated and driven everyone was to succeed and share their knowledge with others; it was very eye-opening to hear about the events and projects everybody had been working on, such as an app for helping the elderly use technology to contact their grandchildren and a way to track manatee migrations for marine biologists.

Day 1

The next day was the start of Build itself. It is by far the largest developer conference I have ever had the pleasure of attending, and the scale was truly mindblowing; the convention centre spanned several blocks to house the hundreds of exhibitors and tens of thousands of attendees. After a 5am wakeup call, we queued for the keynote speech for which we had front row seats. Several coffee-fueled hours later, the moment we had all been waiting for began: Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, took to the stage to kick off the event and talk about Microsoft's vision for 2018 and beyond. This year, there was a big focus on AI, Azure, and empowering every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more — their new mission since Nadella took the role in 2014.

Of the demos presented during the three-hour keynote, there were several standout moments to me:

• A futuristic office meeting concept which recognised and greeted participants as they entered the room and transcribed the conversation, identifying action items for specific people simultaneously. The demonstration also included live translation into different languages and a mixed reality aspect with one participant analysing and manipulating a 3D model of a building in real time to identify faults in heating systems. The technology still seems quite far off and it definitely felt like a teaser for what might be possible in a few years, but it was very cool nonetheless and highlighted how we'll be able to become more accessible and productive down the line.
• A joint announcement with drone manufacturer DJI to release a set of SDKs to remotely control drones from a computer. The demo also showed off new AI capabilities which could be used for technicians to identify faults such as a defective pipe from afar and before the problem becomes critical. Seeing the program correctly outline and report back potential faults that might otherwise be overlooked was especially impressive!
• An entertaining presentation with Amazon's Alexa team to show how AI assistants Cortana and Alexa can collaborate together to make your life more efficient. It was interesting to see how you can switch between the two on both platforms to achieve tasks that are associated with the other service. Although it is a little clunky to switch between the two at the moment (e.g. you must Alexa to start talking with Cortana instead), the potential is there and I can see it becoming very useful in the future.

After several more announcements about Kinect, Azure, AI, and accessibility, we were released for a well-deserved lunch break (a Seattle favourite, Piroshky) and then it was time to explore the gigantic exhibition hall and attend as many sessions as humanly possible.

I started off the day with a hands-on session about Babylon.js which is a nifty Javascript framework for building 3D applications such as games or models. In particular, there was a strong focus on the framework's virtual reality features with WebVR and many live demos with a VR headset. What blew me away was how much of the heavy lifting Babylon.js actually does, allowing you to prototype and build your ideas with very few lines of code; converting your application into VR requires just one additional line!

Next, I headed to the exhibition hall which featured four theatres for more short-form talks throughout the day. Here, I got to learn how to build Xamarin apps quickly and also to improve my Git workflow using the same techniques and patterns utilised by employees of GitHub.

After that, it was time to make the rounds of as many stalls and exhibitors as possible for the rest of the day. I visited as many as possible from internal tools such as eye control in Windows 10 (using Tobii eye trackers) to external companies such as Red Hat linux (who knew these two companies would now be actively supporting each other). I was particularly impressed by the eye tracking demo which has a number of applications not only for accessibility for those who are unable to use a mouse and/or keyboard but also for things like gaming and for marketers to analyse how websites and advertisements are perceived by consumers.

Twelve long hours later, it was time to return home and get some well earned rest but not before a quick stop off at the Amazon Go store — the only one of its kind in the world — to test just how good the tracking and AI really is. I had to convince myself that it really was okay to walk straight out of the store without seeing a cashier to pay for my goods first, but it was crazy to see the app correctly identify every single item I took just moments after I got outside. Even trying to trick the system by putting a jar back in the wrong place or passing an item back and forth between each other was not enough to fool the hundreds of sensors embedded throughout the building.

Day 2

On the second day of the conference, we all got up early again to queue for the second keynote of the conference. While the first day was more focused on artificial intelligence and some of Microsoft's newer innovations, day two was more focused on two of their more established areas — Windows and Office. This keynote was headed up by the extremely energetic Joe Belfiore who leads the Operating System (i.e. Windows) team at Microsoft. After starting off with a few quips about Google I/O which was running its keynote at the same time, he began to bring on several colleagues to talk about some of the new features coming in the near future. A few of which were:

• An updates on 'Sets', the feature which has been teased for a while now. Sets bring a tab-based paradigm to working on specific tasks. For example, if you are working on an essay, you might have a word document open as well as various Wikipedia pages and a File Explorer window open for sorting diagrams you want to include. Sets allow you combine all of these things into one tabbed window to keep them segregated from other tasks you might be working on. Another example shown was filing expenses with a calculator, expenses software, and several images of receipts grouped together into one simple workflow. While the feature is still not ready to be released, Belfiore stressed that it was coming in the near future once it has been perfected.
• Timeline, which has already been released in recent updates of Windows, is getting new features to make the transition between working on different devices more seamless than ever. They will also include Sets once they are ready.
• The most exciting of all, Linux line endings are now displayed correctly on Notepad! While this is such a small feature, it was funny to see how electric the crowd became at the news of this much-needed change — we are all developers after all!

After the keynote, we were once again let out into the exhibition hall to roam free and then to visit any sessions that sounded interesting. I started the day (coffee in hand) with a talk and discussion from Starbucks about how they are leading their digital transformation. To quote Jeff Wile from day one's keynote, "who knew there was so much technology behind a single cup of coffee"! I was especially impressed with how technology has been used to get drinks out to customers faster: with users ordering on the Starbucks app, their drinks are only prepared when they are near the shop as opposed to as soon as they press 'Buy', allowing customers in-store to be served sooner and to prevent drinks from going cold. As well as that, I also managed to attend fascinating sessions about the new Starbucks Progressive Web App (PWA), and the Microsoft Graph Security API.

The final session I attended was all about Fluent Design, presented by Tim Allen and Chigusa Sansen. They discussed how they have been tweaking the user experience on Windows to create a more cohesive and pleasant experience for users. To see them discuss the thought process and purpose for changes that many people wouldn't consciously notice was very interesting — for example the use of colour to create a better brand identity for apps and reducing the amount of padding slightly to allow more information to fit onto a single interface.

To finish off the day, we went for a bit more Seattle sightseeing. This time, we went to see the Space Needle which was unfortunately closed but still a sight to behold from below. After that we went to check out the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in the trendy area of Capitol Hill where you can see the coffee beans being roasted in front of your eyes, before heading to dinner at one of the many Chinese restaurants in the area.

Day 3

Although day three is still technically part of Build, we were also in town for the MSP Summit! This day was dedicated to knowledge transfer and hearing from MSPs around the world about what they do, how they do it, and how we can do the same. I was lucky to hear from Korean MSP, Jiyeon Oh, who talked about how she has been building solutions to help others in the world, Konrad Dysput who stressed the importance of finding a good team to help you pull off events, and Eric Zhang who delivered a great introduction to the Internet of Things. At the end of the talks, I was feeling truly inspired. To hear such wonderful stories of altruism, passion, and discovery was really refreshing and I learnt a lot about how to work on my own projects going forward.

At the end of the day was the Build Party to celebrate the end of the conference. A large scale operation of shuttle buses took us from our hotels and the convention centre to the Museum of Pop Culture and the famous Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit for a fun-fuelled evening of live music and exclusive access to two of Seattle's greatest venues. What a marvellous way to send off the week.

Day 4 and Conclusion

On the final day, our role was reversed from the previous day. Rather than showing everyone what we had achieved, the purpose was to discuss how we can make the Microsoft Student Partner program even better than it is today. For this, we had multiple round table discussions with managers and those invested in the scheme to learn about areas which could improved. It was a fantastic experience to talk to the people who make everything we do possible and share our feedback directly to them.

Then, it was sadly time to depart back to rainy London. All five days were over in a flash, and before I knew it I was on my flight across the Atlantic. Despite this, I had an absolutely incredible time in Seattle and met some of the kindest and motivated people in my life — I will no doubt be keeping in touch with them in the future and hopefully see them at next year's conference!

From my trip, I learned a number of lessons but to summarise:

1. Never settle. Don't settle for mediocrity; keep raising the bar and aiming higher.
2. Make an impact. We're only here for a finite amount of time — spend it wisely and help others.
3. Don't stop learning. "Once you stop learning, you start dying" – Albert Einstein
4. There are great people everywhere. Surround yourself with them constantly.

Thanks for reading.

Many thanks to Abhishek Sugam, Orlando Gomes and Eric Zhang for providing some of the photographs used in this writeup, Teresa, Susan, Tracey, and Justin for making the trip possible, and to all the other amazing MSPs who provide me with the drive and motivation to keep improving and growing. Love you all.