On Friday, December 16, I had a special visitor come speak to my programming classes. His name is Brandon McMillon. His official title is Academic Developer Evangelist. He lives in Tampa and covers Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. He started working for Microsoft in 1996, working for the Visual Interdev test team. In 1999, he moved to the Windows product team, spending 5 years there as a program manager and lead program manager. He was involved with shipping Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. He mainly works with colleges and universities but, as I can attest, he is more than willing to come talk to high schools about almost anything related to Computers, hardware and software. My classes cover a span with one mostly Freshmen in an Intro to Programming in VB.Net to AP Computer Science with a lot of seniors looking to college and careers. Brandon was able to speak to all the classes with enthusiasm, keeping their interest. He spoke about his career at Microsoft and preparation for it. He also talked about some upcoming releases. The tablet computer was a topic of interest for many. I appreciated his openness and candor.
If you would like a speaker, check into a Microsoft Academic Evangelist. And don't let the title sway your opinion. He spoke very little about Microsoft; really , only when he was asked a question that dealt with it. And your students will probably enjoy a break from hearing you .