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// 10 Must Attend Events for the New Year!

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Looking for some great events where you can learn and network in the New Year? Look no further, as we’re hosting a variety of events to help you stay connected in 2012. For a complete listing of events, please click here or follow along via RSS.

1.) Kinect User Group (1/23, 6:30pm)

Join us for the soft launch of the Kinect user group! We’re looking forward to hearing your ideas and feedback to help influence our future meetups, including the official kickoff on Monday, Feb 13th.

2.) MegaTweetUp (1/24, 6:00pm)

Join Boston TweetUp for a celebration honoring a year’s worth of TweetUps and networking events throughout New England. Think red carpet, meets music awards, paired with unprecedented networking, all at a Tweetup!

3.) Building the Talent Pipeline (1/25, 7:30am)

Can Massachusetts create a better and brighter workforce by educating our younger generation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)? The impact of STEM can be seen across every industry, in almost every company, and the competitive advantages of a STEM-trained workforce cannot be ignored. Add your expertise to this lively interactive forum, featuring Boston.com and Microsoft’s own, Jennifer Chayes, Distinguished Scientist &  Managing Director, Microsoft Research New England.

4.) The Non-Event (1/25, 4:30pm)

Designed by The Ad Club, the NON-Event is an award show celebrating non-profits, their creative partners, and the award-winning marketing materials they produce together. The Boston creative community is so generous when it comes to sharing time, resources, and energy with local non-profits. Their dedication to creating phenomenal work for non-profit clients enables many important causes in this community to thrive.

5.) Cloud Mixer with Microsoft’s Satya Nadella (1/26, 5:00pm)

Join MassTLC’s cloud community for an evening of networking and conversation with the President of Microsoft’s Server and Tools Division, Satya Nadella, who is leading Microsoft’s enterprise transformation into the cloud and providing the technology roadmap and vision for the future of business computing.

6.) MITX E-Commerce Summit (1/27, 8:00am)

Bringing together expert practitioners and thought leaders to examine how to develop and keep the love of your customers, MITX will look ahead to the future of E-Commerce and how technology innovation, business model evolution and creative marketing strategy are building loyal customers who convert the first time, buy more and keep coming back.

7.) WEST: Alternative Careers in Science and Technology (1/31, 6:00pm)

Meet an extensive panel of female entrepreneurs and business leaders who have experience breaking into and thriving in careers outside of academia,
including: business development, technology, life sciences, patent law, consulting, communications, project management, and financial services.

8.) Boston I/O (2/4, 11:00am)

Boston I/O is a free conference for high school and college students where leading web designers and developers will give short, 10 minute talks on core technologies and design techniques that power today’s web and mobile world. Students will have the opportunity to meet with local web designers and developers to discuss internships and full-time job opportunities.

9.) Mass Innovation Nights (2/8, 6:00pm)

Mass Innovation Nights provides innovators, entrepreneurs and product marketers with a forum to connect with the social networking community, mainstream media, marketplace to gain more visibility for their new products.

10.) Easter Seals Connect for a Cause Fundraiser (2/16, 6:00pm)

Connect for a Cause raises disability awareness and support for Easter Seals Massachusetts, a non-profit organization committed to providing equal opportunities for children and adults with disabilities to live, learn, work and play. Join Easter Seals for a night of live entertainment and networking with young professionals and others, who are committed to giving back to the Boston community.

// Serving the New England Tech Industry

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Walter Somol - Director of Tech Community Outreach

Hello. I’m Walter Somol, the Director of Tech Community Outreach here at NERD.  I’m thrilled to be joining the team that has worked so hard to establish NERD and build a strong partnership with the greater Boston and New England tech communities!  My goal is to expand on those efforts to help foster and grow the local tech industry.  To that end, I would love to hear how you think Microsoft can help address the opportunities and challenges facing the local tech industry and how we can improve our events, community involvement and other initiatives.

I started at Microsoft over five years ago in our Interactive Entertainment division, working with third party video game publishers and developers of content for Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE, Kinect, Windows, Windows Phone, etc.  In addition to building healthy and successful long-term relationships with our partners, I helped evolve and design new business models for Microsoft’s video game platforms and services.  Prior to joining Microsoft, I worked for a number of years in the video game and entertainment businesses.  I also represented entrepreneurs, startups, later stage companies and investors in the tech industry.

As fun as it was to work in Xbox, it’s great to be back home in the Boston area after five years on the west coast.  I’m amazed at the energy here in Boston, especially in the startup community! I have already had the opportunity to meet with a number of fantastic organizations including MassChallenge, Dogpatch Labs, the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC), MIT Enterprise Forum, Future Forward, Greenhorn Connect and BREW.  My objective over the next couple of months is to meet as many of you as possible across the tech community to hear what’s on your mind.

In my new role I will be working closely with a great team of people including Chris Bowen (Developer Evangelist), Jim O’Neil (Developer Evangelist), Abby Fichtner (Startup Evangelist), Edwin Guarin (Academic Evangelist), Alfred Thompson (Academic Developer Evangelist), Sara Spalding, (NERD Sr. Director), Paul Coebergh (NERD Sr. Marketing Manager), Leah Brunson (NERD Marketing Manager) and others out doing their work in the community.

I look forward to meeting you!

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