I wanted to post some notes and thank yous to everyone that made our first 365 Saturday DC a fun and memorable event!

We kicked off the Hackathon on Friday with a group of excited and incredibly smart attendees throwing around a variety of interesting ideas. We rolled into Saturday with a group of insanely talented speakers. Starting with Julie Strauss’ keynote, we had one excellent session after another. Based on our attendee response, our speakers did an amazing job.

We made sure that we had months to plan and it was STILL a lot of work for everyone involved. I know everyone who participated would agree that this was a massive team effort.  My only regret from this event was not being able to attend all of the sessions and spend more time with everyone in attendance!

Special Thanks!

First of all… A few special call outs to Marc Schweigert and Bradley Law from Microsoft. 365 Saturday events are largely a community organized but without the help from Microsoft and their investment of time and effort, the event would have simply crashed and burned.  For weeks, Marc coordinated our onsite logistics for the office space at Microsoft, including food, security, registration, tables… all of it!  Brad was asked late in the game to fill in for Marc on Saturday.  So he made the long drive into the office at 7 AM on a Saturday!  We had some logistic hurdles and Brad just made things work.

Melanie Ochs and Stacey Perritt both deserve special thanks for taking time out of their weekends to coordinate registrations, set up attendee giveaways, tables, coordinate food, and just keep people on track attending sessions!  I think between these two alone, they must have walked 15 miles all while making our attendees and sponsors feel welcome and get where and what they needed.

Marc, Brad, Melanie, and Stacey all had some personal commitments this past weekend and they still gave us their time and energy for 365 Saturday DC.

Our sponsors and a scholarship!

Without these organizations and their excellent people, we would not have been able to host this event. These organizations provided the funding that paid for our excellent speakers’ travel, the food, and some cool prizes and handouts for our attendees.

Microsoft

Microsoft

Avtex, LLC

Avtex, LLC

The Cobalt Company

The Cobalt Company

Futurez Consulting, LLC

Procentrix, Inc.

Procentrix, Inc

Applied Information Sciences

client10

Nigel Frank International

ClickDimensions

ClickDimensions

Dynamics 365 Saturday DC Chapter Scholarship

A really important rule that Raz puts forth as part of hosting a 365 Saturday event is that all excess sponsorship funds should be donated to a charity of our choice. But of course we wanted to be different. In place of the charitable donation, our team will be establishing the Dynamics 365 Saturday DC Chapter Scholarship for DC, Maryland, and Virginia area students attending a college or technical program. Our goal is to help kids cover some education costs and generate excitement about technology and mathematics.

More to come on this program over the next few weeks and months as we work out the details on this scholarship.  Stacey and Melanie are heading this up and it’s in excellent hands.

Our speakers!

Our speaker team was simply amazing.  Without our speakers, we would not have been able to host this event…

Ok, I think you see the pattern. Everyone involved in coordinating this event made a big impact. Being part of a community that will give up their beautiful fall Saturday to help us learn cool new things is a really special feeling.  Check out the list of our speakers that gave up their time to share some experience, insights, and brainpower with us!

Julie Strauss – Principal Group Program Manager, Microsoft Michael Ochs, MVP – Director of product development, Cobalt Aiden Kaskela, MVP – Founder, Kaskela Solutions Andrew Butenko, MVP – Senior Consultant, Hitachi Solutions
Julie Yack, MVP – COO, Colorado Technology Consultants David Yack, MVP – CTO, Colorado Technology Consultants Nick Doelman, MVP – Founder, Dynamics 365 Avenger Daryl Labar, MVP – Capability Manager, PowerObjects
Sheila Shahpari, MVP – CTO, Third Tier Solutions Kylie Kiser – CRM Specialist, Financial Services Firm Mary Davis, PMP – Product marketing manager, cobalt Carlton Colter – Federal XRM Technology Solution Specialist, Microsoft
Liudmyla Tretter, PMP – Senior Consultant, Cobalt Thomas Daly – Technical Director, Procentrix, Inc. Geoff Ables – Managing Partner, C5 Insights Hemendra Patel – Lead Solutions Architect, Procentrix, Inc.
 David Fulcher – Senior principal consultant, Procentrix, Inc. Mallory Lawhorne – Consultant, Cobalt Chris Geer – Dynamics 365 Solutions Architect, Microsoft Bradley Law – Solutions Architect, Microsoft
Derek Durkovic – DOD Solutions Architect, Microsoft Nelson Johnson – Solution Architect, Broadpoint Vishwas Lele – Chief Technology Officer, Applied Information Sciences Donovan Goode – Technology Solutions Professional, Microsoft
Charles Channon – Development Lead, Microsoft
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