Cloud as a Story - Vunvulea Radu

 I finished the review and scoring for Imagine Cup - Epic Challenge 2023. I found exciting ideas and ways in which technology helps us to make the world better. I realised that from 2018 until now, I was part of the judging team for more than 18 different Imagine Cup events, including the semifinal and finals. As always, it is an honour to be part of this event.

  Today I was recognized for my mentoring of startup founders, some of whom are operating in emerging markets and are in under-resourced communities. This has been one of the most personal and impactful ways we at Microsoft can support and enable these founders, that is, sharing our startup experience and industry knowledge through mentorship. I hope this inspires startups to turn to Microsoft where we can truly democratize access to resources and channels that can help founders grow and scale their businesses. 

The last 4 weeks were a joy from the community's point of view. Even if the interaction was mainly online, I had the chance to discover and meet many people at 6 different conferences. I would like to share a short summary of each event: Microsoft Ignite Spotlight on Romania  (Bucharest, December 8th): The in-person event took place in Bucharest in a fantastic location (Nord Events Center by Globalworth). It gathered Microsoft and Cloud specialist from the local market. During the conference, I had the opportunity to share my experience related to resilience and performance tests on Microsoft Azure using the new Microsoft tools like Azure Chaos and Azure Load Testing. Conf42 DevSecOps 2022  (online, December 1st): The online conference is focused on DevSecOps aspects related to the cloud and Kubernetes. I was invited by Conf42 team to deliver a session about security tools that need to be used when you build an application on Microsoft Azure.  Connect.IT Sibiu  (Sibiu, November 24t