Forem: Arkodyuti Saha

Take the Python Virtual Labs at #PyConIndia2020

Arkodyuti Saha — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 13:49:54 +0000

Welcome to the Python Virtual Labs which we've launched as a part of the #PyConIndia2020 digital experience. Here is how you can complete the Python Virtual Labs and claim your virtual swag 💖

1. Join our Microsoft Python Discord

✅ Visit http://aka.ms/python-discord to join the Microsoft Python Discord.
✅ Join the #python-virtual-labs channel for further instructions and to ask questions.

2. Select and complete a Python Virtual Lab from GitHub

✅ Visit https://aka.ms/pyconindia-virtual-labs and select and complete a virtual lab from the README in the GitHub repository
✅ Some labs may require an Azure Subscription. You can sign up for an Azure free account here

3. Confirm lab completion and redeem your code for the PyCon 2020 Swag Giveaway.

✅ You must complete at least one lab to qualify for PyCon 2020 Virtual Swag Giveaway.
✅ Follow the instructions in #python-virtual-labs (Discord) to upload your screenshot / confirm completion.
✅ Tweet with the #PyConIndia2020 hashtag and tag @azureadvocates with a screenshot of your completed lab
✅ Virtual swags are available while supplies last.

Drop us a line in the comment section if you've any questions/reach out to us 💬

Tania AllardFollow

Open Source and data lover. I am also mildly obsessed with purple and mechanical keyboards. Co-Director @quansightlabs

Arkodyuti Saha Follow

Developer Education at GitHub | write/speak/code

Subscribe to the Microsoft.Source Newsletter. Follow Azure organization 🔖 for content/updates from Cloud Advocates and other Microsoft Technology professionals.

Join us at #PyConIndia2020

Arkodyuti Saha — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 13:25:23 +0000

Hello everyone 👋 We are excited to be at PyCon India 2020 virtually as a Platinum Sponsor. Microsoft has worked with Python communities to create tools and services which provide ease of development. This year at PyCon India 2020, Microsoft is super excited to introduce Microsoft Learning Hub to empower everyone attending the conference 🌎🌍🌏.

🔖 Don't forget to bookmark this page and check back for updates!

🎙️ Meet our Speakers 🎙️

Our focus has always been to empower and skill everyone. Tune into our talks at the main stage of PyCon India 2020.

Tania AllardFollow

Open Source and data lover. I am also mildly obsessed with purple and mechanical keyboards. Co-Director @quansightlabs

[Serverless Machine Learning 101 | October 2, 2020 | 13:55 IST](https://in.pycon.org/2020/#schedule)

Rory PreddyFollow

Eat, Sleep, Devrel, repeat.

[Programming for Accessibility | October 2, 2020 | 15:20 IST](https://in.pycon.org/2020/#schedule)

⚡ What to expect at the Microsoft Learning Hub ⚡

Microsoft Learning Hub is the place to get started for anyone - could be a student, a professional developer, or someone who is looking for a career change. Our learning hub has two tracks, one focussing on Community and the other on Skilling. The Community room is the place to hear dialogues/discussions by the Community Leaders on both tech and non-tech. The Skilling room is where you can skill-up your Cloud, Python, AI, and Machine Learning knowledge. Check out our detailed agenda for both days below!

Day 1 - Community Hub #1	Day 1 - Skilling Hub #2
DJ Coding - Chris Nwamba🎧 `13:30 IST`	🍿
Welcome Address - Arkodyuti Saha `13:50 IST`	🍿
Dialogue: Low Code/No Code - Priyansha Mishra, Deepesh Somani, Students from Mirim Girls' Information Science High School `14:00 IST`	🍿
Community Spotlight Stories - Suzanne Chen, Rohit Guha, Jyotsna Gupta `14:30 IST`	Welcome Address - Tania Allard `14:50 IST`
Diversity in Tech Community - Megan Mallin, Winston Damarillo, Aditee Rele, Olumide Ogundre `15:00 IST`	Using the functional approach of data preparation for deep learning tasks using mPyPl library - Dmitry Soshnikov `15:00 IST`
Panel Discussion: Building a Dev Community anywhere on the 🌏 - Paras Pundir, Olivia Ha, Leanne Robers, Phantip Kokilanon `15:30 IST`	Improve Customer Engagement and Productivity with Conversational AI - Amy Boyd `15:30 IST`
Visual Sketchnoting: Azure - Nitya Narasimha `17:30 IST`	Azure DevOps - Vivek Sridhar `17:30 IST`
Careers in Tech 101 - Miri Rodriguez `18:15 IST`	ASAP with Azure - Ayush Chauhan `18:00 IST`
Dialogue: Being a DEV without CS Degree - Chloe Condon & Cassie Breviu `20:05 IST`	Panel Discussion: Making a difference with students around the world - Pablo Veramendi, Khushboo Verma, Masaki Takeuchi `20:05 IST`

Day 2 - Community Hub #1	Day 2 - Skilling Hub #2
Welcome Address - Arkodyuti Saha `13:50 IST`	Welcome Address - Tania Allard `13:50 IST`
Dialogue: Productivity during COVID19 - Priyansha Mishra, Dr. Nitin Paranjape, Prashanth Subramanian `14:00 IST`	Using Data & AI to solve everyday problems - Pratik Mohapatra `14:00 IST`
🍿	Workshop: Creating Cognitive Portrait using Cognitive Services - Dmitry Soshnikov `15:00 IST`
Data Storytelling - Priyansha Mishra, Kritika Jalan, Brent Dykes `17:30 IST`	Add Intelligence to your applications ft. Azure Cognitive Services - N R S S L Tarun Nanduri `18:00 IST`

That's a soft wrap up for now.
🔖 Bookmark this page and we will share more updates later this week about the Microsoft Learn challenge at #PyConIndia2020. Btw, did we say have a lot of swags to give away at PyCon India 2020?😉

Join us at #AIDevDay ☁️

Arkodyuti Saha — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 16:13:51 +0000

Take the Azure Dev Challenge 🏆

Complete any one of the Microsoft Learning Path from here
Share your MS Learn Profile and achievement badge with #AIDevDay on Twitter
Subscribe to Microsoft.Source newsletter and keep learning

Note: Valid submissions will receive an Azure Hero Badge via Twitter DM. Please ensure your Twitter DM is open 😉. If you've any questions regarding the Azure Dev Challenge, drop us a line on the comment section below.

About AI Dev Day 🎬

Hello everyone! Microsoft is excited to join AI Dev Day as the main sponsor. AI Dev Day is a single day, virtual, developer-focussed, community-driven conference on AI and Cloud, taken over by professional AI and Cloud developers. The event has been tailor-made with the objective of encouraging and helping AI & ML developers upskill in the most face-paced career trend. The event is absolutely free and open for all.

Grab your AI Dev Day Conference tickets here 🎟️

Meet our Speakers 📺

Whether you are someone who works on AI and Machine Learning for a living or planning to get started. We got you covered with an amazing line up of speakers from the community 💖

✅ Amanda Wong & Devanshi Thakar on Extracting Value from Text and Audio to Inform Business Strategy
✅ Akanksha Malik on AI to BI - One Stop Solutions in Azure Synapse
✅ Amy Boyd & Gary Pretty on Improve Customer Engagement and Productivity with Conversational AI
✅ Haimantika Mitra on Build your model using Azure Custom Vision and deploy it in a web app.

Find the entire conference schedule here

📢 See you all at the virtual stage of #AIDevDay

Follow Azure organization 🔖 for content/updates from Cloud Advocates and other Microsoft Technology professionals.

Join us at jCloud Day!

Arkodyuti Saha — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 15:49:57 +0000

Take the Azure Dev Challenge 🏆

Complete any one of the Microsoft Learning Path from here
Share your MS Learn Profile and achievement badge with #jCloudDay on Twitter
Subscribe to Microsoft.Source newsletter and keep learning

Note: Only valid submissions will receive an Azure Hero Badge via Twitter DMs. If you've any questions regarding the Azure Dev Challenge, drop us a line on the comment section below.

About jCloud Day 🎬

Hello everyone! Microsoft is excited to join jCloud Day Conference as the main sponsor. jCloud Day is a single day, virtual, developer-focussed, community-driven conference on Java and Cloud. The event has been tailor-made with the objective of encouraging and helping Java developers upskill and be up-to-date on the latest Java and Cloud technologies. The event is absolutely free and open for all.

Grab your jCloud Day Conference tickets here 🎟️

Meet our Speakers 🎙️

Sandra AhlgrimmFollow

Cloud Advocate at Microsoft 🐳

Go serverless with Java and Azure Functions (11:50 AM - 12:20 PM IST)

Rory PreddyFollow

Eat, Sleep, Devrel, repeat.

Java on Azure: Building springboot microservices (12:35PM - 01:10PM IST)

Follow Azure organization 🔖 for content/updates from Cloud Advocates and other Microsoft Technology professionals.

Hacking with Microsoft Azure ☁️

Arkodyuti Saha — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 12:37:16 +0000

Hello Hackers! Welcome to the third part of the "Hacks for Hackathons" blog series 🙏 The last blog was about the Tips & Tricks to win Hackathons and the impact a developer makes while attending a Hackathon. And now this blog is for all developers who are planning to attend a Hackathon and use Microsoft Azure to build their hack.

Microsoft Azure 101 ✔️

Microsoft Azure is a flexible, scalable, and full-featured cloud platform. If you can imagine it, you can build it on Azure, using the tools, languages, and frameworks you're already familiar with. Python, JavaScript, Java, .NET - you can run them all on Azure.

If you're new to Azure, I would highly recommend you take the Azure Fundamentals Learning path and getting an overview from the Azure Docs. By the end of the learning modules, you will get a hang of this and find interest in exploring other learning resources.

OK! There are no dumb questions especially when it comes to a hackathon-'why build your hackathon project on cloud and not locally, what can one use to quickly bootstrap a hack on Azure, and services that can be used to scale applications. Too many questions aren't it? Well recently I got a chance to have a discussion with Dave Glover one of our Cloud Advocates, and here is a snippet 💬 of the conversation with a lot of resources for all developers to check out especially to build their hack. Check out the Twitter thread to learn more and join the discussion #DevSpeak on Twitter.

az hack ☁️

az hack is a command-line utility for quickly bootstrapping Azure resources commonly used for a student hack project. With az hack create you will be able to spin up and configure databases, web hosting, and even artificial intelligence.

           az extension add --name hack

⚠️ Provisioned resources

Azure App Service plan, which creates a VM in Azure for your site
Azure App Service, which will host and run your site
Database, including Azure SQL Database, Azure Database for MySQL, or CosmosDB using Mongo API
Key for Azure Cognitive Services, which can be used to add artificial intelligence into your application

All resources are placed in the same resource group

Explore more about az hack step-wise installation and configuration notes on GitHub 👈

           want a cheat sheet to build awesome hacks?

Azure Hackbook 📑

Azure Hackbook is a go-to-guide for any developer to learn and build scalable solutions at hackathons on Azure. This is more like a cheat-sheet with some product/services documentation, sample projects, code samples, and many more learning resources. The Azure Hackbook is never finished! It's an ongoing project for the developers that we're always trying to update as we run more and more hackathons.

Additional Resources 💻

Visual Studio Code

Azure FREE Trial Account

Azure for Students Account

Time to hack ⏰ Okay, if you are building a hackathon project and have an exciting story to tell I would ❤️ to hear it and feature them on my blogs/podcast series. I almost live on Twitter 🏠 @arkodyutisaha so feel free to buzz me. Cheers!

Tips & Tricks to win Hackathons🎉

Arkodyuti Saha — Sat, 25 Apr 2020 14:03:17 +0000

Hello Hackers! Welcome to the second part of the "Hacks for Hackathons" blog series 🙏 The last blog was more from an Organizer standpoint about Resources and tips to execute one, but this blog is for the Hackathon Attendees. In this blog we will learn about the Tips & Tricks to win Hackathons.

📺 I hope the short video tutorial above 👆👆👆 will be helpful to developers in building a good hack 👻

Over the last few years, I've been closely been involved with Hackathons - as an Attendee to an Organizer, followed by a Mentor and Judge too. I do a bit of public speaking talking about ways to rapid prototype, building scalable solutions at hackathons. Well let's be honest, as an attendee, we care about the prize 🏆💰 and then the cause. But that's okay, we all want to fill in our bags with the big cash prize at the end of the day 😉. Few things I'd like to highlight the impact that a developer(say a university student dev) makes both personally and towards the broader society by attending a hackathon:

✅ Building your portfolio - Trust me, no one cares about what you've literally written on that CV - all that skillset and certifications. Better have a one page CV with the projects that you've built and you know what Hackathons are the best place to kickstart your first project.

✅ Networking is the key today - It's okay even if you've not been able to win the hackathon, or have made a half-done project. But zero points if you've not been able to network with more devs/mentors/judges of that particular hackathon.

✅ Enjoy hackathons as you do at concerts - Hackathons should be celebrated like any other concert. Isn't it the developer's favorite gig? Show some enthusiasm while building your hack, build it for the cause, and for the spirit of Hackathon culture. 🔥

Next time you've hackathon happening in your university/town/anywhere on Planet Earth 🌏 just jump in. Cheers!

Writing a technical blog 101

Arkodyuti Saha — Mon, 20 Apr 2020 23:15:27 +0000

Let’s do a quick quiz!

1. Do you remember the Schrödinger wave equation?
2. Do you remember the name of the Disney princess with the longest hair in town?
3. Do you remember the scientific name of the frog?
4. Do you remember the story of the Princess and the Frog?

Yes, while we read of Rapunzel and the frog as kids in kindergarten, we don’t even remember stuff we studied only a couple of years ago, stuff that was essential for us to pass exams, get into big institutes and make our parents proud!

This, my friend is the Power of Storytelling.

When you’re writing any blog whether technical or non-technical the motive is to ultimately tell a story. There are a few tips and tricks to writing amazing technical blogposts.

🏷️ Intro – Be a Storyteller
Surface device products to your favorite thriller on Netflix – what kept you hooked in was an appealing story i.e. a short video of say 1min or a little more. Similarly, when you are writing a blog you need to have a story outline to tell which will keep your users scroll till the end. The intro section of the blog needs to be short and crisp and covering broadly three things –

✔️ Why are you writing this article – the background story behind it
✔️ What you are going to cover in this blog
✔️ Who is going to read this blog?

Just a note–typically a technical blogpost could either be a tutorial that people can follow step by step, or it should at least teach something interesting

🏷️ Base – this is the layer with a lot of substance in it
Contextual Relevance - utilize this section of your blog to go in-depth about the topic you’re trying to focus on in your article. Have a structure in this section from stepwise procedures, relevant code snippets, documentation, architecture/flow diagrams and hyperlinks to other relevant articles (if any).

We need to be mindful of three major pointers in this section –

✅ Headline
✅ Images/Videos
✅ Formatting

A few tools/features which can help you shape your blogs –

☑️ Markdown – If you’re writing on dev.to make sure you are familiar with the Markdown syntax
☑️Snagit – can help you capture screenshots for your blog
☑️ Use Cloudinary to add and manage images/videos to your blog
☑️ Color contrast analyzer tool - helps with the text to background-color
☑️ Words choice e.g. Click instead of mouse
☑️ Put alt-text on images
☑️ Hyperlink phrases or words that describe the site instead of saying "here"

Note: If you are creating a tutorial/demo video for your article – it’s always great to upload it on YouTube/Twitch Channel and link it to your blog.

🏷️ Conclusion – Publicize your piece of content
This is the last lap of the race – which is going to take quite some effort. A few things you can do to drive users to your blog is –

✔️ Packaging your entire content – create a header image for your blog, add subtitles
✔️ Post it in relevant publications. For example, if you’re writing a blog post on Using Cognitive Services of Microsoft Azure – your go-to place should be Azure Publication on dev.to or Medium.
✔️ Social Hype – Tweet/Share on relevant Facebook Groups/Newsletters (if possible)

The core intention of writing technical blogs is to “help developers” – like any technology advocate to help the broader community. Write what the community wants, address the problems that the community wants, keep shaping products the way the community wants. That’s how a healthy DevRel 🥑 is like. Check out some of the awesome blogs under the Microsoft Azure publication on dev.to

How to host successful Online Hackathons🎉

Arkodyuti Saha — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 20:55:42 +0000

Hello Hackers! Welcome to the "Hacks for Hackathons" blog series.🙏
In this blog series, we will cover the best practices from hackathons. This is the first part that is about how to host successful online hackathons or migrating your offline hackathons to online during a crisis.

A hackathon is defined by Major League Hacking as an ‘invention marathon.’ The industry today considers Hackathons to be a major technical sport or a developer gig for building the next big app or solution. Over the years many global brands like Microsoft, Twitter, Amazon, Twilio, Google have been committed to supporting the next generation of software developers for many years through hackathons. India is one of the largest developer economies and host to the maximum hackathons worldwide. On average monthly over 25+ Hackathons happen on some of the famous Indian hackathon platforms like Skillenza, Hackerearth, TechGig and more.
Read more ...

The novel coronavirus, nCOV-19/COVID-19 🦠 spread across the planet is declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Big developer economies like the USA, China and India are a victim of this. Considering all the guidance from the international and national health authorities about social distancing, every organization is taking its step to ship developer experiences remotely/online. Being a part of DevRel – I spend a fair amount of time either organizing/mentoring/judging hackathons. And right now, I hear every hackathon organizer freaking out because of all that yearlong planning 📅💰.

So, what is to run hackathons online without any Hackathon Management Portal?

You can definitely pick any e2e Hackathon Management platforms like mentioned above but guess what those come with a bunch of features and commercials too.💲

As an organizer, you can still greet first-time hackers with your customized bitmoji (on email) instead of shaking hands at the online check-in. Okay, there’s a lot of logistics we need to consider when we do offline hackathons like 🍕, Swags, Hacker Interactions, Mentorship Panels, Judging – but in case of online hackathons, the process is a little different and simple too. So what is it like to run a hackathon with a zero budget? 🤔

ℹ️Website

Create a simple website using the HTML5 Boilerplate – it’s fast, robust and adaptable to web apps or sites.
Hosting your website
- Use GitHub Pages to host it for FREE(hackathon_name.github.io/repository)
  - The step-wise process to setup GitHub Pages
- and link to your custom domain (if you have)

📝Registrations

Use Forms linking it to your hackathon website
Found this interesting MyMLH API that helps you share and manage the registration data in one click

📚Developer Content & Resources

While running Online Hackathons I recommend creating a resource repository on GitHub for developers to access.
Example: Azure Hackbook.

Sign up on Microsoft Azure ☁️ to claim a Free Trial or Azure For Students Offer for your next hackathon.💯

💻Hackathon Management(using GitHub)

Set up a GitHub account from your Organization
Create a repository with your Hackathon Name – add description and URL
Create a README.md – to add the basic information
Create a rules.md – to add the basic rules for your online hackathon
Create a submissions template – for your hackathon teams to submit their projects using create a NEW ISSUE
All project submissions appear as ISSUES on GitHub

💡 Pro-tip: Ask your attendees to add LABELS for various Themes/Tracks of the Hackathon.

Assign Mentors using @ tag to help into the specific projects as per the track/theme. 👨‍💻👩‍💻
Once all the checklist on the each of Project/ISSUE is resolved – close the ISSUES. Check out this project submission page on GitHub ✔️

If you are a Hackathon Organizer – FORK 🍴 this sample Hackathon repository to set up your own Hackathon Portal and EDIT using simple markdown😉

arkodyuti / hackathon

add hackathon description

Hackathon

Welcome to Hackathon!

Rules

Kindly go through the Rules of the Hackathon beforehand.

Submissions

All the Project Submissions have to done by making an issue in this repository. The guidelines to followed for the same have been mentioned below:

The Team Leader has to open up an Issue for project submission using his GitHub Account here
The Issue Template should be strictly followed. A submission not following the same would be termed as an INVALID SUBMISSION.
Add appropriate labels according to your Project Field & Track. Two Label have to applied on each individual submission.
Only a single issue has to be made for each individual project, Multiple submissions will be termed as INVALID SUBMISSION.

Labels

One has to mark appropriate label in order to a submission valid for the Hackathon. Each submissions should have at least 2 labels according to the Project Field & Track.

Project Field:

…

View on GitHub

📢Communications

Communications are a big part of hackathons, say it the invitation emails to winner announcement or even the Mentor discussions. It's always a great idea to pick an IM platform to help hackers make those conversations.

Mailers – Use MailChimp
Announcements/ Instant Messaging
- Microsoft Teams
- Slack
Social - Twitter & Instagram

🌟 There is a lot more you can do to engage with your developers online. From streaming multi-player games to a slideshow karaoke. Learn more about some of the amazing online activities you can do to engage with developers by Major League Hacking

Sign up for some of the great online Hackathons 👇

Say hi 🖐️ on Twitter and share your feedback on the blog post. Stay tuned for more best practices in the next part of the series. Cheers!