TechEd-IT Forum : Day 4

Today we had the last wave of Speaker Idol and the final.

Jakob Heidelberg won his heat which was great as he only decided to participate yesterday after we had a chat about the contest at Tuesday night's MCT Influencers Party. He was a little nervous but delivered a great presentation Pretty amazing considering he only had one day to prepare!

Ilse Van Criekinge (Belgium) won Speaker Idol and Maral Topalian (Lebanon) came second. This means that two MCT's won Speaker Idol (Developer and IT Forum) this year which made Mike Honig (MCT Program Manager) very happy.

Ilse was actually the runner up in her wave heat on Wednesday, but Mark Budzinski (Intel US and TechEd Exhibitor) withdrew from the final as he didn't believe it was right for him to be in the contest (read my previous post for some insight into why). This was a very noble thing to do and many congratulated him on his decision (Great marketing kickback as well!).

Maral Topalian and Ilse Van Criekinge

Today was also the day that Andy Malone (IT Forum Speaker Idol 2006) got to present his session (Prize for winning Speaker Idol 2006). Andy was very entertaining and did a great job; despite having technical difficulties with the switching equipment.

Well, that's about it for today. The rest of my time was spent Proctoring............