TechFest, Technical Computing, and Steve Balmer

I am having a blast these days even though it’s been pretty busy (especially with the condo buying process in motion). Yesterday we had a full day of presentations from my group’s various interantional collaborators. It was great to see all the fantastic things they are up to and chat to them in person. I’ve had lots of interesting discsusions and I met lots of clever and prominent people. One of the many great advantages of working for Tony Hey is that you get to meet and talk with the best scientists (in any field).

Today, TechFest 2007 started with an open day for non-Microsoft folks (by invitation). It’s fascinating to see what MSR‘s researchers (750 of them apparently) are up to. The two keynotes gave me a lot to think about and I got very excited with the focus on science and social networking. I am going to be interacting with the researchers to make sure that their technology gets incorprorated with some prototypes I am preparing.

We also had a private meeting with my group’s guests today. Tony invited Steve Balmer to talk about Microsoft’s interest in scientific and technical computing. It was nice to see the company’s CEO reaffirming our interest and investment in this area.

Now it’s time to clear my mailbox and start doing some coding for a change 🙂 I am really looking forward to the next couple of days when I’ll be browsing the TechFest booths (the next two days are only for MS employees).