My First MS Ignite - 2019 Edition
Akanksha Malik
Microsoft AI MVP | Data and AI Consultant | Director at Women Who Code
In September 2019, I found out that I was going to be attending MS Ignite this year in Orlando. I was invited as a not-for-profit partner with Women Who Code Melbourne on the Humans of IT diversity track. I was ecstatic to say the least! Thanks to Telstra Purple and Microsoft for making this possible for me!
#HumansOfIT
I had heard about the Diversity and Tech track on Twitter with the #HumansOfIT tag and was intrigued. It was new and refreshing to see such a focus on this at such a large tech conference. These are topics that are at the center of conversations right now and allow you to be - bear with me - a human in IT.
This year’s theme of “Intersectionality: The real diversity superpower” immediately resonated with me — being Indian, Irish and now Australian. My interest was already peaked and furthered by the announcement of the new focus areas in the D&T track this year to include mental health, wellness and youth entrepreneurship. The — dare I say it — diverse range of topics being covered was exciting to say the least!
And it was all so overwhelmingly worth it. The stories, the people, the topics - it was all beyond my wildest expectations. I was a bit apprehensive leading up to the conference. It just seemed like it was going to need a 100% for 6 days straight with 30,000+ people. All this on top of the jet lag that I was going to be facing, seemed daunting.
It turned out to be exactly that - hectic and busy and always on the go for the whole week. But it wasn't overwhelming mainly because of the people I met at the Humans of IT pre-day. We made a little community and that is often hard to do at conferences, especially those at the scale of Ignite. There was always someone I knew around in the crowd of people and it made the whole experience that much more positive.
It was amazing to see people sharing their stories which inspired others to do the same. The Humans of IT room was my absolute favourite to be in (it also always had the best food at the conference!).
None of this would have been possible without the safe space and environment that was created by Shona and her her team. Their dedication and work was apparent with how well everything worked. It was more than just sessions that they hosted - there were so many Easter eggs throughout the week, from pins to collect to D&I Lego sets to be won! If you're heading to one of the Ignite Tours, I would recommend having this track in your calendar.
For more details on the individual sessions, photos and quotes from the day I have documented it all here:
MS Ignite 2019
The conference was filled with sessions on new Azure products and services. The ones I'm really looking forward to checking out soon include:
- The new Azure ML services which range from notebook VMs to AutoML which runs through all possible models and tells you the best one - without needing you to do any code!
- Azure Synapse Analytics which is a unified platform where you can ingest, transform, train and visualize your data all in one place.
- InterpretML which explains your models thinking and reasoning.
- The Power Platform in general where it's helping make technology more accessible to everyone and creating Citizen Devs everywhere.
And not to forget Universal Orlando! Having the park to ourselves for a few hours was just unbelievable. Harry Potter world was everything my 11 year old self dreamed it would be!
Recommended Watching
In terms of the technical sessions, I'll leave that up to your own preferences and backgrounds. All sessions from the week are now up and can be viewed here.
A few of the sessions from the Humans of IT track that I would recommend:
- Hidden stories of the tech trenches, and how *YOU* can help - Jess Dodson
- Your uniqueness is your best superpower - Denise Pyles
- Imposter Syndrome banishing spell - Dona Sarkar & Jeremiah Marble
- An introvert’s guide to the IT industry - Sonia Cuff
- Mental health: It's time to talk - Ryan Yates
There's obviously a whole load more and you should definitely check them out.
Overall
The week was full of learning about Azure, meeting amazing new people and hearing many different personal stories.
Building networks is always a part of conferences but through Humans of IT I have made friends that I am still in touch with and hope to see again at the next Ignite.
The takeaways from the week are countless and I have done my best to document as many of them as possible. If I continued to list everything here, this article would extend far beyond what anyone needs in their lives.
I have left all that over on Twitter, so if you are interested feel free to check it out. The last few days are on the way and I will add the links here as soon as they're up.
Fingers crossed I'm back next year and will get to see you all again!