TechMela: Diving Deep into Microsoft Technologies
Microsoft MDP Nepal for the first time organized a 2 day long TechMela for the IT community of Nepal on March 29 & 30, 2010 (2066 Chaitra 16 & 17) at Staff College, Jawalakhel in Lalitpur. The main objective of the event was to enhance and exchange knowledge about information technology and Microsoft 
products and technologies in the community. The event consisted of different fun and knowledge packed parallel sessions. Some of the most distinguished tracks of the Mela were Click2Win Photo competition, Panel Discussion of the State, Academia and Industry, Launch of the Microsoft IT Academy, Community Chautari, TechMela Gaming Zone etc.
Session I
The first and the maiden session started exactly at 10:30 AM with a keynote speech being presented by Mr. Allen Bailochan Tuladhar, CEO, Unlimited Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Mr. Tuladhar is an MVP (Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional) in Window’s Desktop Experience. He briefed about the flow of the entire program with a unique blend of word ‘Geek’ during his half hour session to the delegates of the conference.
Session II
Mr. David Lim, Microsoft Corp, Singapore came up onto the stage to showcase the power of the technology students. 
As most of the program attendees were the students of IT colleges, David applauded the student mass by bringing fourth the world facts and figures about students in his PowerPoint slides demonstrating that they were a very special group of students. In between, he also quizzed the delegates with a complete package of interesting questions relating to students. Mr. David concisely talked about Imagine Cup (IC), MSP (Microsoft Student Partners) Program, Faculty Connection and a whole lot of Microsoft’s cutting edge technologies including Microsoft Surface and Xbox360. He further explained the theme of the Microsoft’s upcoming Premier technology Competition IC Poland 2010 wherein the solution to solve the world’s toughest problems will be expected to be addressed in the ideas and designs brought forward by the competing students. Lastly, he quoted as saying “You (referring to students) have the power to change the whole world…” which seemed to leave the attendees pretty inspired with his words.
Session III
Time: 11:20AM
By this, it was already the time for a theme based panel discussion, the theme being ‘Government, Academia & Industry on fostering innovation and growth for local software.’ Mr. Allen Tuladhar led the panel of prominent figures which included:
Mr. Binod Dhakal, General Secretary, Computer Association of Nepal (CAN)
Mr. Biplav Man Singh, President, Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce & Industries (FNCCI), Former President (CAN)
Mr. Peter Zirnite, Representative, US Embassy
Mr. Saurab Amatya High level Commission for Information Technology (HLCIT)
Mr. Surendra Shrestha Institute of Engineering (IOE), Tribhuvan University
Mr. Pinal Dave MVP (SQL), www.SQLauthority.com
Mr. David Lim Microsoft Corp, Singapore
Before handing over the mic to one of the panelists, Mr. Allen expressed his point of view by stating that the relevant and contemporary business education was needed for the local software companies to grow. Mr. Peter Zirnite in his witty-gritty disposition confessed that he was not a PC but an Apple as he was an Apple user. He further clearly expressed himself that he was not a geek either, but since he needed computer to work on his daily schedules, he used it within a limit. Meantime, he hailed the considerable no. of women participation in the symposium being a part of an IT event. Vis-à-vis fostering innovation and growth for local software, he didn’t feel much to comment upon the issue as he was not an expert in it, but Mr. Zirnite in a low voice expressed his serious concern over the withering condition of Nepalese music industry due to proper attention not being paid by the government stakeholders on the part of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).
Mr. Biplav Man Singh, another panelist, at first, indistinctly talked about the current political situation of the country underlining the electric power outage and shortage of other basic commodities, and then smartly came to the mainstream discussion. He put forward his opinion that professional IT courses can be a plus point to be obtained after one graduates out of a university which eventually leads to becoming a global workforce. Apart from English, he also recommended the students to have expertise on any one of the international languages such as Chinese citing the huge possibilities of being employed in the Asia Pacific region as a skilled manpower since 1/3rd population of this region speak Chinese. Mr. Singh encouraged the stakeholders on building relations between Industries & Academia by citing an example wherein Memorandum of Understanding (MOE) was signed between WorldLink Communication Pvt Ltd. and Lord Buddha Education to cater the needs of the graduating students.
Mr. Surendra Shrestha, representative from Institute of Engineering (IOE) spoke about the Moore’s Law which stated, in every 18 months, the data processing capacity of a machine doubles by its previous value and the market value (or the cost) is reduced to half. Mr. Shrestha felt the need for a proper implementation of MIS (Management Information System) in Nepal to ensure the fostering of innovation and local softwares.
Mr. Pinal Dave, an SQL Expert and an MVP (Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional) from India interestingly advised everyone to stop complaining or making excuses for whatsoever reasons and start giving the best in what you do. He also recommended the technology students to start blogging in a way to share, get noticed and recognized by others.
The next prominent speaker of the discussion being Mr. Saurab Amatya from HLCIT stressed upon the essence of implementing e-governance in Nepal. He explained that US $32 million grant on the part of Asian Development Bank (ADB) with the assistance from Korean government has been invested for the e-governance proceedings in Nepal. Once, e-governance is implemented in Nepal Government, lots of career opportunities will start to appear from the day one for the Nepalese IT students and professionals. He also believed that the execution of e-governance was definitely going to attract foreign investments in Nepal which in turn would create further job opportunities.
As the session was absolutely time bounded, Mr. Allen Tuladhar suddenly appeared onto the stage and wrapped up the discussion by asking everyone to analyze and collect the best part of the discussion and have a positive approach as in his own words, “…look at the half full glass not the half empty glass…”.
Momentarily, he gave a flashback of his 1992 AD story, the time when he was back from United States and had made a Typing Tutor by himself. Though thousands of people used it, only two of its copies were sold, and the newer version never came out; the sole reason behind being the case of software piracy wherein the author or the producer is deprived of receiving the due credit. With this he meant that getting credit to the owner of the software was important since it drives the author to the path of success, prosperity and innovation.
At the end, lots of questions were asked by the students to the panelists. Heron Shah, an engineering student from Kathford International College in Kathmandu when asked, “How do you address the problem of piracy in Nepal?” to Mr. Binod Dhakal, General Secretary of CAN, he replied back by representing the general public that the affordability was the main cause of piracy and as the ground reality the reason why he himself was using pirated softwares. Meantime, he lauded Microsoft for providing free softwares to the students of Nepal through its MSDNAA (Microsoft Developer’s Network Academic Alliance) program. He added by saying that the problem of piracy could be addressed to some extent if the software prices could be lowered to certain degrees.
Some other questions that had been asked pin pointing the panelists to answer were:
Q.There are different academics programs in ICT such as BCA, BIM and BIT. How does industry look at different students coming out from these different programs?
(Asked by Mr. Samant Manandhar, Pulchowk Campus)
Ans: BIM is an amalgamation of business and IT. It does not matter which discipline student come from. We look on how student respond to our requirements. We give training to employees for 2 to 6 months after we recruit them. So, actually it doesn’t matter which academic course you come from.
(Replied by Mr. Biplav Man Singh)
Ans: It all depends upon the nature of the work.
(Replied by Mr. Saurab Amatya)
Q. Why I have to study Applied Mechanics for I’m a student of Computer/Electrical Engineering? ( Asked by Ritika Pokharel from Kathmandu Engineering College)
Ans: Engineering is all about discipline……
(Replied by Mr. Pinal Dave)
Q. We see that CAN Info-Tech is absolutely business oriented. Then why do you say it’s for providing information to the visitors? (Asked by Saroj)
Ans: Actually, at Info-tech, we don’t simply provide information; we also hope to do business. We look for both types of people.
(Replied by Mr. Binod Dhakal)
Mr. Allen Tuladhar closed the panel discussion by handing over a geeky T-shirt to each one of the panelists as a token of honour.
Session IV
Time 01:50PM
The geeky session started exactly after the Lunch break. Mr. Nutan Marasini, SQL Expert, Microsoft MDP Nepal commenced his slide show presentation beckoning SQL as a Database Management Software. Mr. Marasini progressed with his presentation from the rudiments of SQL Server to its implementation in Business world. As the presentation was targeted to the basic SQL learners, Mr. Marasini didn’t go to the technical depth and gave a short demo Database Development in SQL Server 2008 platform. He further went on briefing the audience about Business Intelligence (BI) technologies.
Before leaving, he silently welcomed Mr. Pinal Dave, the one and only SQL Guru onto the floor for his session.
Session V
Time 02:35PM
Mr. Pinal Dave who hails from MVP community of India talked about the important features of SQL Server for the early few minutes. Then, he further continued with explanation on Qu ery Optimization Techniques. He gave a demonstration on how indexing in SQL improves performance during his 45 minutes tenure.
Session VI
Time 04:05PM
Once again, Mr. David Lim showed up onto the stage with a power packed presentation. He gave a brief notion of MSDNAA and ELMS and explained how Microsoft makes it possible for the STEM-D college students all over the world to download various Microsoft softwares and serial keys from the ELMS. Mr. David threw light on the benefits which these Microsoft Programs offer to the students worldwide. He also elucidated on how dreamspark was different from MSDNAA.
Upon a question asked by Sushil Dhakal, a student from Amrit Science Campus (ASCOL) in Lainchor, on how many times a serial key could be used on a particular PC, Mr. David responded that a key could be used for maximum of three times after which Microsoft provides no further support.
Heron Shah, a student participant when asked on how Microsoft knows that the software downloaded by the student from ELMS has not been using it for business purpose, Mr. David had a very short answer in his repository that was ‘BELIEF’.
Session VII
Time 04:45PM
A session on Software Sthaniyakaran ra Antarastriyakaran was being presented by Mr. Pradeep Neupane, Localisation Executive, Microsoft MDP Nepal. During the entire session, Mr. Neupane focused upon the fact that English was not prominent for using a computer as the problem of language could be solved through the use of Unicode. He said that the Unicode is already available in Microsoft’s latest Operating System (OS), Windows 7 which further means the OS is capable of supporting Nepali language when integrated in it. Mr. Neupane stressed on the need to giving priority to using computers in native (local) language.
Session VIII
Time 05:15PM
The last but not the least, a session on ‘Unified Messaging’ was presented by Mr. Deepak Neupane, MCSE, MCT, Trainer, Brainworks Learning Center, Khichapokhari. Due to time constraints, the presentation was limited to a short period where in he wonderfully showed a demonstration on how Unified Communication could be implemented in which various features such as Office Communication & Video Conferencing could be used.