Want to go to Tech Ed Africa? Microsoft can help convince your boss

If you’re an IT pro or developer who thinks mingling with some 2 500 techies, attending your pick of 200 technical sessions and singing a few rounds of TechIdols sounds like a delightful way to spend your company’s money, then Microsoft can help you out.

In a bid to make it easier for interested people to attend this year’s TechEd Africa event, the company has created a email template packed with all the right keywords and jargon that you can simply copy, paste and send off to your boss with minor edits. It looks a little something like this:

[Your boss’s name]

I’ve been doing some research on training and development that will not only enhance my skills, but bring added value to the team by bringing my learnings back to the office with me. The best option seems to be TechEd 2013. It offers unlimited opportunities and learning. This is a great way to get the most out of our IT training budget.

Microsoft TechEd is the premier technology event of the year for IT professionals and developers. It’s the forum to gain the expertise, connections, and insights that will help us get more from our existing IT investments. I will be able to network with peers who know exactly what we’re going through and learn from Microsoft employees who know the most about the products we’re working with.

These are the types of tech I’ll have direct access to over the four day journey:

[Insert updated table]

I’m looking forward to you and I discussing the benefits of my attending TechEd 2013 further. Please let me know when you have a gap.

Thanks,

[Your name]

Simple. The conference, which will take place at Durban’s Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre from 16 to 19 April, is geared towards equipping Africa’s IT sector with knowledge and skills in the rapidly changing tech world. The main areas of focus will be on Microsoft’s Server solutions for businesses interested in capitalising on the cloud, as well as the newly released Office 365, Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, with a dedicated track discussing apps development all of the company’s platforms.

“There’s a lot going on in the world of technology right now, and TechEd is a critical platform for us to share our roadmap and insights with our IT Professionals and developers,” said Microsoft South Africa’s Developer and Platform Evangelist Lead, Clifford de Wit. “Cloud, in all its complexity, is probably going to dominate the discussions, but there’s also a huge emerging focus on apps, which are a major opportunity for enterprises going forward.”

The Microsoft team is currently calling for the last round of registrations before the 10 April deadline, and preparing for the hundreds of technically sessions and 36 ‘chalk & talks’ and self-paced labs that focus on areas like client infrastructure and security as well as its products like Sharepoint, Exchange, Office 365 and Dynamics. The conference will also tie in with the Microsoft Management Summmit in Las Vegas, showing more than 50 presentations from the event’s international speaker lineup.