1. Common Language Specification
2. Framework Class Libraries
3. Common Language Runtime - CLR
4. .NET Tools

• Object management
• Code and Access Security management
• Exception Handling
• Type Checking
• Debugging

1. Compilation
2. Execution
3. Garbage Handling
4. Intermediate Code Generation
5. Language Interoperability

Coffee lovers! Do you remember the bytecode in Java?

1. EXE – Process Assemblies
2. DLL – Library Assemblies

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="566"] ASP.NET Framework[/caption]

Your app has just 5 fruitful days of life!

The above statement is part of my usual experiments over figuring out what drives triggers in human brain to take an action like clicking on my article. Jokes aside, the statement is completely true and reliable. Your app may have just 5 days of life as nearly 50% of applications get uninstalled within 5 days of their installation.

Top 3 reasons for short life -

• Engagement Funnel
• Spam (Too many useless notifications)
• End of use-cases

As a co-founder of an app based company, I always ponder about essential elements to get success in startup world. While reading my old journal entries, I found an interesting note about building a successful startup. The key things to a startup is to develop a killer product, a budding team and loads of determination. Though these factors alone don’t guarantee any sure-shot success — or more importantly, user growth, adoption, loyalty or in context to Indian ecosystem - 'Funding'. But to increase your chances of building a startup that lasts, I realized that the only thing which matters is 'Customers'.

3 Tracks – 3 Winners - $50,000 at stake to turn your dream idea into reality!

Dream it! Build it! Live it! Imagine Cup! 

World Citizenship - Since inception of Imagine Cup 13 years ago, the vision has always been to find path breaking ideas of millennials and helping them in making a positive impact in this world through their application. By creating impressive new technology projects in fields such as health, education, and the environment these students have shown the world new ways to think and to change. The idea is simple – Change the world and there is nobody better than these youngsters to do it.

Two takeaways for National Finalists: Do you believe in your idea? Do you think it’s really revolutionary? Do you think it changes lives of people for better? If yes – then make sure your presentation also send the same message. Do user testing and include the feedback, learnings into your product.

Previous Winner Pitch: https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/ImagineCup/Imagine-Cup-2014-Winner-First-Place-World-Citizenship

Aww. I just love Eyeanemia and their amazing pitch. Great idea, Close to perfect execution and 86 live users. You can clearly see what it takes to win the Imagine Cup.

Innovation – As rightly mentioned on the website, Break the rules. Nobody expected a 20 something undergrad to connect one fifth of the world through his dorm room and revolutionize the whole industry. As you all know, It was Mark Zuckerberg and he invented Facebook. You have the power to bring incredible, world-changing innovations which will certainly change our lives for better and we are here to help you achieve it. Imagine Cup can be a catalyst for you to turn your startup idea into reality. Social networks, music services, digital photography apps, gadgets and robotics – the list goes on.

Two takeaways for National Finalists: Innovation comes from inside and by understanding the root cause of problems. Think deep and think fast! Having copied idea doesn’t help. It isn’t a way to impress people. Make sure you refine your idea before the final pitch. Feel free to reach out to your mentors, friends or anyone whom you think - can be a perfect devil's advocate.

Previous Winners Pitch: https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/ImagineCup/2015-Pitch-Video-Challenge-Winner-Innovation-Team-LifeScreen

This pitch is so fantastic in terms of idea presentation, ideation, implementation and finally communicating the right message. Make sure you refine your pitch for National Finals beforehand and be ready for finale!

Games – What is better than gaming but the mantra should be – “Play to win”. Today, great games come from anywhere and people play them everywhere. On their phones, on their computers, on their tablets, in their browser, with their friends, with anyone, with everyone. Powerful game engines and libraries are available for free so students can get started right away. May be the next Flappy Bird may come out of someone from your class or college. So – Just dream big and Play to win.

Two takeaways for National Finalists: People understand you're not an artist, and finish your work!  Having half-finished projects isn’t a way to impress people and that's esp. true for games.  Have a polished game and think about UX. That's what matters most to win the Finale and fly to Seattle :)

Previous Winners Pitch: https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/ImagineCup/2015-Pitch-Video-Challenge-Winner-Games-Team-Hk

I just love the pitch of this team. The story-line, planning and concept – all of them are quite phenomenal and that’s what makes them stand-out. Now, you know the secret sauce to win in the games category. J

Some resourceful videos and tips:

• How to give a Zen like presentation http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2008/01/5-presentation.html
• Almost all the Imagine Cup finals and a lot of other videos to learn by watching them: https://www.youtube.com/user/imaginecupmicrosoft/playlists
• Include usage scenarios in your presentation and demos.
• Conduct research about what solutions are already available in the problem space that you are addressing. Identify your project’s value proposition.
• You will be evaluated on technical prowess as well as viability of getting the system deployed in real-life. Consider things like cost of implementation, training requirements, policy requirements etc.
• Conduct system testing as well as user testing (with potential users of the system)
• Practice your presentation in front of friends, teachers, mentors etc. Get someone to play the Devil’s Advocate and badger you with questions about why the solution that you propose will fail.
• Try and get some “Wow-Factor” into your demo- something that will make the judges sit up and pay attention!

Key Points to Remember:

• Carry your own equipment (including laptops, phones, Kinect sensors, Web Cams, power cords etc.) and softwars
• Be Creative, Confident & Cheerful!

We have had a lot of buzz around Imagine Cup these days as idea submission deadlines are approaching. Imagine Cup is a global student technology program and competition that provides opportunities for students across all disciplines to team up and use their creativity, passion and knowledge of technology to create applications, games and integrate solutions that can change the way we live, work and play.

Imagine Cup will provide you an opportunity to bring your bold ideas to life. I can’t think of a big opportunity to turn your dreams into reality and taking the first step in turning it into a business during student life.

The good thing about Imagine Cup is it gives chance to almost all students to try their luck and to participate with any skill set. Imagine Cup has competitions and contests are divided into 3 categories, according to their technical aptitude:

1. Beginner – No or little coding required
2. Medium – Some experience in Coding
3. Advanced – Experienced Student Developers

This time, we have 3 global competitions and 2 online contests in Imagine Cup.

During my college days, I always participated in multiple technical contests. There are typically 3 important phases for any competition:

1. Ideation and Conceptualization
2. Implementation
3. Packaging and Presentation

Ideation and Conceptualization: With a hypothesis that you have already formed your dream team for the competition, the next crucial phase is all about ideation and preparing concept note. There are multiple ways to go about Ideation process:

1. Read rules and regulations of the event and properly tabulate all the important things
2. If it’s a theme based competition, discuss with your team and go ahead with one theme in which you have some knowledge or feel comfortable talking about it.
3. Create list of all the ideas which comes to floor during brainstorming with your team.

Pro Tip: Search online and check various submissions and innovative ideas; it’s highly unlikely that something may click to you which is a combination of some really cool stuff

1. Choose top 3 best ideas and now start preparing concept note. Once you are done with it, Prepare a one slider for technical implementation.

Pro Tip: Take advice of your seniors or mentors in validation of your technical implementation idea. Sometimes some ideas can be a bit superficial and imposable to implement.

1. Finalize your idea and turn your one-page concept note into a proper project document which has all the typical project document contents
2. Create your first 10 Slider presentation for your idea along with a design document containing architecture and step wise implementation steps/

Implementation:

1. If you have followed all the steps of Ideation and Planning, It will be a very easy and straight forward process in terms of giving shape to your idea. Take help of seniors and experts as and when you get stuck. Don't try to find solution to each and every problem. As I am a firm believer of component based Software Engineering, I suggest trying out the already developed libraries and solutions. 

During my recent trip to Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Sciences, I gave a day-long session on C# and Object Oriented Programming. After the session ended, one of the students hesitantly shared his dilemma with me. He talked about his insecurities and fear of programming and how difficult it is for him to catch up with some of his friends who have been programming since the first day of their college.

Rather frequently, I have started getting this question again and again from these future leaders about programming and the starting point to enter into this amazing world of coding.

I am writing this blog post to share my views regarding – How to be a kick-start programming, when you know nothing? I have tried my best to make it as generic as possible but still I am adding a disclaimer that every individual is different. You may or may not agree with my views.

All right! So let’s start our journey –

Firstly, about where to start, I would say in this connected world, we have innumerable resources available at our disposable just a click away.

Try to start learning about technology as if you are in kindergarten. Remember, those amazing days when there was no pressure and you enjoyed solving puzzles by making words.

Start small with no fears – Take any programming language and just start reading about it. Understand it and go slow.

There are some amazing resources and websites available like Code.org – which is pretty commendable as it gives you a feeling of accomplishment through its gamified system for completing programs on browser based system.

My favorite portal is Codeacademy.com due to availability of a large number of courses and pretty active forums to clear my queries.

Dilemma Stage after a week: Just by coding on these portals for 6-7 days, you can’t expect overnight success or achieve the “THE CODER” tag in your community and college. It takes lots and lots of effort initially to learn programming.

I really like this learning curve: 

I would suggest reading at least one book every month so as to understand the nitty-gritties of your preferred platform or language.

Start with something simple like “Let us C by Yashwant Kanitkar” and then move ahead slowly to slightly complex books. You can easily find multiple books according to your interest and technical aptitude.

Now, once you get a hang of the basics of your preferred programming language, it’s time to actually start building a solution. It can be anything – a calculator app, a chat bot, a small website based on RSS feed, solving problems on competitive programming websites or literally anything.

As long as you are applying your learnings in building something – You are on your way to become an expert.

Take help of various video tutorials and courses available online to give you a kick-start in actually building a solution.

I personally love MVA aka Microsoft Virtual Academy (I know its shameless self-promotion, but still, its literally the best). With more than 500 courses along with accessibility to download all the resources without paying a cent makes it my go-to portal for  technical learnings.

Pluralsight is another amazing portal with more than 4000 courses and detailed assessments. I have done a lot of courses on it for web platform BUT Its paid – tsk tsk L.

Attention MSDN Subscribers: There is a good news for you! MSDN Subscribers get Pluralsight membership free for 6 months and also amazing discounts and offers for extending it.

Here’s a list of resources which I really like:

• Code.org
• Code Academy
• Code School
• Pluralsight’s Programming for Kids
• Head First Books
• Khan Academy
• Hour of Code
• New Boston Videos on Youtube

I would conclude with this statement that – Programming requires patience, willingness to learn and positive mindset to excel. No good thing has even been done overnight except scoring 40 marks during engineering in just one night ;)

So, until next time – Rise and Shine.

I look forward to know more about your journey on “How you entered into programming world” and any other related information.

Feel free to comment, rate or tweet me at www.twitter.com/NowayHeCodes :-)

• Balance between family and work – If startup is growing at a rapid pace and showing great future growth prospects, then involved parties never think too much of what they are sacrificing. But, if there are no indications of growth and you are struggling to balance your personal and professional life then it is time to move on. By not investing time in your personal life you are sacrificing what I refer to as “human emotional capital.“ Human emotional capital encompasses the emotional support that one receives from their family and friends.

• Cash, Cash and Cash –  If you see your cash stocks / savings dwindling and dipping every single day and can’t find way to turn around the cash-flow or raise/loan money, then it’s time to move on. You must’ve heard stories of successful startups where their founders and employees tried hard to keep it afloat for long and then they tasted success. Please be aware that only success stories are printed, not failure stories. Here are facts to help you understand better – out of every 1000 startups, 930 shut their shop in very first year, 28 survived till third year and 11 get funding via angels or VC. Think wise and think through for financials.

• Self-Realization – Trust your instinct- If you have stopped recommending your product to your friends or you don’t feel comfortable recruiting the best people or you can’t inspire people around you anymore and eventually yourself then it’s time to take the plunge.

• Milestones – Give yourself and your startup team a clear set of milestones and then accordingly set some dates to achieve them. If you are not able to meet the milestones like revenue, users, MoM growth, key team recruitments, angel or VC funding or similar things which are extremely important for you, then you should be on the exit path

• Negative or Stagnant Growth – There have been multiple startups who gain traction and then find it really difficult to grow at a steady pace or their growth rate starts declining. If your startup has reached this point then analyze whether you can turn the tide, pivot and grow at a rapid pace again. If not, let go. After all “Giving up doesn’t always mean you’re weak, sometimes it just means you are strong enough to let go.”

Hackathons aren’t just for the start-up tech world anymore. Big organizations and MNCs are also using the same principles to shake the rigidness and institutional inertia to instill more innovation driven cultures. Personally, I have always been a great admirer of the thought – Ready, Fire and Aim which is like the basic philosophy of hackathons.

Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft has often said - "Our world of technology doesn't respect traditions but innovation" and Hackathons seems to be a great way to promote innovation and bring the wave of creative disruption in a corporate environment. Steve Blank, a Silicon Valley serial-entrepreneur, academician and Lean Startup Movement founder while emphasizing the importance of innovation in success of a company said that - "Continuous innovation requires, continuous disruption".

Large organization has particularly benefitted a lot from hackathons by using them as a medium for digital transformation. Hackathons allow big organization to operate like a startup in which the focus is more on hacking your way to solve a problem quickly, instead of bothering about anything else. We have seen it multiple times in India and around the globe that some outstanding ideas have come out of hackathons for these large organization. You don’t need to go too far – We all know the story of Tinder. Yes! Tinder came out of a hackathon organized at the loyalty app department at Match.com. Imagine - a weekend hack giving an app which changes the whole dating industry. According to online sources, Tinder has been valued around $ 5 Bn in recent round of internal funding.

There are tons of example of Microsoft, Google and other tech titans have remained relevant to the industry by continuous innovation and hackathons certainly played a big role as the magic box to find revolutionary ideas and products.

Let's look at why every organisation should organize hackathons:

1. Innovation: As said by Board of innovation, "Organisations that look for a challenging way to explore the potential of a product, service or idea. Engaged corporate teams that like to be pulled out of their comfort zone and that want to be a part of an intensive but unforgettable startup experience." In short, if you want to reinvent one of your existing products or innovate, a hackathon is what you’re looking for!

2. Learning experience: Hackathons give chance to Programmers/ Designers/Engineers to flex their creative muscles, implement tech skills and also gives an opportunity to learn about new stuff and how to get things done quickly. Each and every individual at hacks, be it developers, designers and product people they come out of hackathon feeling as though they’ve learned something and feel a sense of achievement turning their ideas into reality

3. Hustle: "Industries that you would never think are trying see how they can harvest the benefits of hackathons," says Angelhack founder Sabeen Ali. "It’s decentralizing their IT in favor of a greater collaboration between developers, marketers, and CEOs to create products or simply get ideas flowing outside the typically constrained box."

Thanks for reading the blog post. I would love to discuss and brainstorm on your hackathon plans and what you think about them? Feel free to tweet @NowayHeCodes for any comments, suggestions and discussions. 

Let's create a community which breathes innovation and doer attitude. Let's #Hack!

During my 42-minute trip from Queens to Lower Manhattan, we talked about a lot of things – Life, Atheism, Family, Constructivism, Startups and Meanings for survival. One of the things, which stuck with me was his innate desire and zeal to take every obstacle head on. He was a champion in all senses and he was a proud man. 

As an evangelist for Microsoft, I always look out for people who are into technology and enjoy learning it. I couldn’t resist asking him the big question: “Tell me the top 3 platform’s you are planning for your next application?” - He replied – iOS, Office 365 and Android.

I was stumped. Frankly, I never thought he will put Office over there. I delved deeper in finding the reasoning behind his answer. Truth be told, at this moment, I was happy with the traffic ;)

His reasoning behind Office 365 was amazing. Microsoft is a company which truly stands for 'Productivity' and I can't think of any other company which deserves to be the market leader in this segment. According to him, the large user base and enterprise customers are really big attraction to developers to build on O365 platform. 

Later, we talked about other things and he shared that he’s always thinking about a technology driven connected world where he can take care of his special child even when he isn't around.
He had an iPhone and he was using Wunderlist on it to remember all the things.

Later, I planned to write about Why Office - In my advent, I met various students, developers, IT Pros, TDMs and BDMs and jotted down their responses.

So - Why Office?

1. Loyal and Strong User Base - We have all seen and lived the shift in technology industry. For e.g. We saw the rapid transformation in mobile ecosystem, the era of palmtops and Symbian, the arrival of iOS and Android and who knows what's next! There has never been any company or platform which has stood out as long as Microsoft Office. No platform can claim 1 Billion user audience who use Microsoft Office day-in and day-out for their needs.

2. Large premium market - If we take case of Apple App Store vs Google Play Store, Apple trumps Google by 80 % in terms of revenue. And that's the biggest reason, we see some apps getting delayed for Android. Developers always look for platforms which offer better monetization capabilities. Microsoft Office boasts of a large user base of premium enterprise and consumer customers which developers see as an opportunity to effectively monetize their apps. With Microsoft Office, Developers can know sell their apps in 147 international markets or target to specific organisations. 

3. Full Office experience on cross-platform - Microsoft Office is a robust productivity application used by more than one billion users worldwide across multiple different platforms. Microsoft Office apps on iOS and Android exceeded 100 million downloads within just 18 months of launch on these platforms. Another great thing is the seamless experience of Microsoft Office across any platform. Be it Android or an iPhone - Microsoft Office is the first app every users installs in his phone. 

4. Microsoft Graph - One single endpoint to rule everything at O365 - Microsoft Graph (previously called Office 365 unified API) exposes multiple APIs from Microsoft cloud services through a single REST API endpoint (https://graph.microsoft.com). Using the Microsoft Graph, you can turn formerly difficult or complex queries into simple navigations. You can use the API to access fixed entities like users, groups, mail, messages, calendars, tasks, and notes coming from services like Outlook, OneDrive, Azure Active Directory, Planner, OneNote and others. You can also obtain calculated relationships powered by the Office Graph (only commercial users) like the list of users you are working with or the documents trending around you. Availability of such a broad set of APIs gives developer the advantage of building things quickly after identifying the use case.

5. Open platform for building - Build using any web language including JavaScript, HTML5, Python, Ruby, PHP, Objective-C, Java, and ASP.NET. Similarly, when it comes to IDE - Use whatever you want. The Visual Studio or any other IDE of your choice. Similarly, there is no restriction in terms of hosting your apps at Microsoft Azure. You can choose any cloud platform of your choice.

Apart from the above mentioned ones, I received other responses as well which were critical behind developer's choice for Microsoft Office and O365 platform. The Office 365 Developer Program is an enthusiastic and fast-growing community of developers, pros and amateurs, who are developing solutions on Office 365. Link: Office 365 Developer Program.

I have previously spoken at Future Unleashed about Office 365 Group APIs and blogged about the powerful Delve.

My talk at Future Unleashed - Office 365 Unified APIs.
My previous blog post about - Delve and 2016 Resolutions. 

Thanks for reading this blog post and I would love to interact with you on Office 365, Startups, Customer Experience among many other things. Feel free to tweet me @NowayHeCodes for any comments or suggestions :-)