Microsoft India AppFest 2013 decoded

Pratima Amonkar, Director - Strategic Audience Marketing, Microsoft Corporation, believes that the whole paradigm of software development is shifting. Initially, a lot of the software was produced for the consumption of enterprises and very large organisations; it is now being produced for the consumption of individual customers and the consumers. 

In less than a week from now, thousands of students in Maharashtra will get together at Shivajirao S. Jondhale College of Engineering and VES Institute of Technology in Mumbai, to develop apps for the Windows platform, as part of the software giant’s AppFest. On February 26, more than 10,000 students from across the length and breadth of country will assemble to code applications for a whole day, at more than 50 hub centres like the Shivajirao S. Jondhale College of Engineering and VES Institute of Technology. 

Pratima Amonkar, Director Strategic Audience Marketing at Microsoft Corporation

The colleges are currently holding training sessions for students who wish to brush up their coding skills as they register. 

On the day of Microsoft India’s AppFest, young developers will code under the supervision of Microsoft mentors, trainers and Microsoft Student Partners (MSPs), and submit the app online. For these students, the AppFest is an opportunity to make their apps appear among those others on the Windows Store. 

“Over the past couple of years, application development, i.e. fast, quick software development has become the norm,” adds Amonkar. “One has to learn the methodology before they attack the software. So what we’re doing across the world, and a lot in India too, is conducting online training programs to teach the methodology,” she notes further.

At these online training programs, the company allows students to have a hands-on intense workshop, wherein they can get their hands dirty and create an application. It is really the part of a journey, wherein they try out the app in front of their eyes and thereon move to completing the application. Once an app is completed, they submit it to the store and it will go through a certification process and will be available for people across the world. 

Last year, Microsoft India went on to do a pilot AppFest that saw an assembly of a small group of about 100 people. “Then we moved on to doing a really large one, which even won us the Guiness world record for the biggest number of people under one roof,” says Amonkar. “Our plan for this year is a more widespread one."