What’s like being a Technology Evangelist?

Well I have been asked by many this question and then I though let me blog the answer so that next time anyone asking me this, I can redirect them to this page and increase my page hits ;)

It’s a big story of how I wished and dreamt of being an Evangelist, to tell in short: While I was doing my masters I got this craze of being an Evangelist while my classmates wanted to be Software Engineer, Business Analyst, Test & Quality manger, PM etc.

In one of my job interviews I was asked “What’s your dream role?”
I said “I want to be an Evangelist”
He smiled and said “Why and what do you think an Evangelist do?”
That was the point from where I started finding answer to this question:

- A Evangelist (E)is an inspiration for many
- E motivates people to gets their hand dirty into the technology/product
- E is a very close to salesmen but they will shares the facts of the product and technology with the masses
- E plays around the technology and then shares the learning with the world through a blog post, SNS like twitter or in respective technical forum.
- E works closely with the developer community.
- E is a link between a product engineering team and the outside community using and developing code based on the product.
- E shares the best practices and indentify the bugs around the product/technology
- E is a good predictor and has the perfect pulse which feels the market trends.
- E talks in the camps, meetups, and conferences and tries to reach out to max audience.
- E develops demos around the technology and judges the strengths and its weaknesses
- E has to answer all the technical questions and at times have to sit with the developers debugging the code and resolve technical issues.

Evangelist is born to learn, speak, share, sell and inspire the masses towards the technology or product they are passionate about.

My Grandma fails to understand all this and thus for here Evangelist mean being paid for doing social service in Information technology.
When my dad gets to hear a compliment, “I love when your daughter talks technology” then my dad in his heart would be saying “I would have loved to see her as a great classical dancer then a Technology Evangelist”.
So here’s my answer to my dad “I enjoy being an Evangelist, this birth as a Technology Evangelist but promise in my next birth as a classical dance Evangelist”.

Mobile World Congress 2011 as expected with less surprises

It happened to be my first MWC and thus you could guess how excited I was. I was sharing the space with the 60,000 people from 200 countries gathered in Barcelona from MWC.

It was a week –long parade of technology, gadgets, networking, parties, celebrations of awards and also the fun of witnessing some innovation and opportunity that mobile brings to business.

I have captured all the announcements, launches of gadgets, introduction of new technology and company’s strategies in this presentation with some pics. Hope you enjoy going thorough them.

However following were the key strong highlights and message that I took back from the event:
Android is everywhere and is getting larger day by day: Google mobile OS stole the show. More than 200,000 ppl a day buying an android phone, confirms how serious is Google about Mobile and how good then can be in marketing too

Games on the move: Sony Ericsson launched its much-anticipated Xperia play handset, which will forever change the way people think about Smartphone’s and mobile gaming. Angry birds with 3D on Windows Mobile phone, will be worth a wait.

Mobile gets social: Foursquare, twitter and Facebook SNS are now a major part of the mobile dictionary. Phones are sensors connected to the network, when we use them, they can help us understand the intent we’re giving to our loved ones.

Noika and Microsoft Friendship: Can estimate the level of commitment as the announcement was on the Valentine Day. As they wished to create a challenger now its goanna be three-horse race. Whose betting on what ?

Mobile Payment: NFC (Near Field Communications) are changing the way mobile devices will be used in future. It provides consumers with a convenient way of buying goods. So the question would be when someone leaves from home” Did u carry your Mobile Wallet?”

World of Tablets: Every device manufacture understands the power of a tablet and thus we see Motorola, HTC, Samsung, Blackberry and Apple all in the game. With features like Enterprise, video conferencing tablets will soon become commonplace in offices and homes.

Mobile Web the future: Consumers want to view or access the same content across a number of devices and not to be restricted by any OS, device or network.

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Mobile World Congress 2011 Overview

View more presentations from Bhavya Siddappa.

I have lots of stories to share, some funny and some very interesting. So why don’t ull test your patience meter, till I post them on my blog.

In the mean while enjoy watching my MWC http://bit.ly/h83wjS
and Barcelona pics http://bit.ly/g6TS8S
don’t make an attenp to search me in the pics.
*(For those u don’t know I am suffering from cameraphobia).

What all did I get back from the Andaman Islands

Note: The content was blogged on the last day of my vacation i.e 23th Jan 2011


As I sit beside the swimming pool, my feet’s relaxing under water, eyes gazing at the clean sky with the full moon biding me farewell; I decided to skip my sleep, blog and wait for my early morning flight from Port blare back home.



Islands – I unwind and found inner peace, I felt fulfilled and I relished in this taste of paradise. I have made up my mind to settle-down in an island after retirement.


Beaches – Loved playing with the waves as they roll in, while a wave crashing into the sandy beaches brings a squeal of delight. Every wave that hit me, made me stronger to fight back and smile over.
Forest – As I drove deep inside the forest, saw few of the tribes, realized its a world for some and who gave us the right to wipe them off and construct IT parks, 7 start hotels etc.


Coconut drink – Natures own soft drink, one of the healthiest drinks and I am happy being a tee-totaler. I can compete with anyone in having the max number of drinks.


Cellular Jail – Dreaded jail with 698 dingy cells, the freedom fighters spirit is very much alive here. Confession: I realized the value of freedom then.

Corals - Its not the debate that if they are marine plants are animals, the fact is they are really beautiful. Some hurts give you pleasure; I felt the same when my foot got hit by a lovely coral. I still have the mark and when I look at it, I just smile.


Mangroves –Rare things are always lovely. Andaman is very famous for them. It’s said the presence of mangrove ecosystem on coastline saves lives during cyclones and storm.



TSunami - It’s the tidal wave which has the power of taking away thousand of life’s at a time. When I spoke to some of the localities, I can still feel the pain deep within their heart. History can never forget this deadly episode.

Volcano - How does one know when the earth is upset or angry with humans? Well the answer should be Volcano. So let’s take care of our lovely planet.

Havelock - Thanks for wishing and blessing me on my birthday. I will dream of this island of heaven, wishing and hoping I will be there again someday.


Snorkeling - I have been a bit of adventurous since my childhood days. How could I miss the opportunity of saying “Hi” to the beautiful marine life of Andaman Islands.

View more pics here: https://picasaweb.google.com/bhavsidd

How the year 2010 had been for Android

Jan:
-Year started off with the release of Android SDK 2.1
-Google launched its first phone Nexus One on 2.1 running Flash 10.1
-Motorola Backflip with Yahoo as a default search page, LG GT450 Android Phones got launched
-20,000 units of Nexus1 were sold out in the opening week

Feb:
-With the introduction of live wallpapers in Éclair version, users started enjoying richer, animated, interactive backgrounds on their home screen.
-There were many edge cases in the service lifecycle that made it very easy to accidentally leave a service running; new APIs in 2.0 make this much easier to deal with.
-Android SDK introduced a new UI for end users to monitor and manage the running services on their device.

Mar
-With the help of Voice-enabled keyboard feature in 2.1, one could dictate message instead of typing it.
-Android NDK r3 version released
-Google Labs released Gesture Search App for android

April
-Google started working on Android Tablet
-Google confirmed Android 2.1 downgrades Image Quality 2.0
-Android twitter app from google was made available in the app store, this app brought in an evolving Android UI design patterns.

May
-Google Developers day – Google IO was hosted and it got an awesome response and support, for the first time the keynotes were live streamed.
-Android 2.2 (Froyo) was introduced with features: Cloud to Device Messaging, Dalvik JIT etc
-Through the new app market feature, users could report bug and developers were able to receive crash and freeze reports from their users.
-Google Latitude API were made public

June:
-Android 2.2 SDK and NDK R4 both were available for download
-An application which violations Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement or Content Policy or any malicious application that poses a threat, google developed technologies and processes to remotely remove an installed application from devices.
-Logitech brought Android iPhone apps for Google TV
-This was beyond imagination, but it came true: iPhone 3G was running Android 2.2
-French, German, Italian and Spanish speakers started enjoying using Google Voice Search

July
-As android 2.2 supports application installation on SD card, this gave users room for many more apps, and benefits to apps from games categorie.
-Swype came to Android virtual keyboard
-Android Market welcomed Korea
-Google announced the release simple and free service provides a secure mechanism to manage access to all Android Market paid applications. At run time, application can query the Android Market licensing server to determine the license status of your users. It returns information on whether your users are authorized to use the app based on stored sales records.

Aug:
-It was interesting to see new players like Spice Mobility, Dell, Micromax launching Android devices
-Samsung Galaxy S got launched, which till today is sold like hot cake.
-Google Android overtook Windows Mobile

Sep:
-Android 2.2 started to see wide adoption
-2007 when Google announced Android, Andy Rubin said “We hope thousands of different phones will be powered by Android.” But at this stage was growing beyond phones to new kinds of devices.
-Samsung Galaxy Tab was announced and it was said to be a wake-up call for Android developers. It was scary for the developers as they had never seen a screen like this on an Android device before.
-Launched Voice-Action in the new Google Voice Search for Android — an awesome new way to search faster.
-Developers from 20 more countries were now able to sell paid apps on Android Market.
18 additional countries were now able to purchase paid apps from Android Market.

Oct:
-There was lot of buzz happening around about Google TV and Galaxy Tab
-Android was quickly moving to hardware that are increasingly different from the smartphone devices, having lack of features like GPS, accelerometers, and video cameras
-Google announced the mobile editing capabilities for Google docs on android and iPad
-Adobe AIR 2.5 cross platform runtime environment for android released

Nov
-Showing content ratings for all applications on Android Market. This provided users with additional information to help them select the best applications for them.
-U.S Military people favored Android and they all owned an Android phone
-Google Map 4.6 with new features in its Location Based Services was released for android

Dec
-Google with partnership of Samsung launched Nexus S with 2.3 android sdk with support for NFC
-Google Map 5.0 was released which was faster, supported offline & -iIn 3D look
-Android Market Client Update; more payment options in android market
-Skyfire the popular mobile browser released 3.0.1 for Android
-Google launched a new eBook store to read digital books optimized for android devices running 2.1
-Andy confirms google activating 300,000 Android devices per day

Conclude:
When google launched the Nexus One, they thought this would be the flagship mobile device for their new Android operating system. The Nexus One served as the blueprint for Android devices, which exploded across most major mobile carriers. With their open approach and flexibility in what carriers and manufacturers can do with the OS, Android’s numbers grew. Android began to surpass the iPhone

As android became more popular, there was talk of fragmentation of the apps ecosystem and the operating system itself. With frequent updates from Google, but carriers dragging their feet on sending updates to their customers, the problem seemed serious for developers and Android fans. Fragmentation may soon become less of an issue as more handsets are updated to the latest Android OS, but still its wait and watch.

If you need a phone or a tablet with an advanced OS but are turned off by Apple’s “closed” nature of premium pricing, Android is the device for you.

2010 came to an end …I take a break and reflect on the year gone by.

Jan – House warming of my newly bought house. My family, relatives, friends and colleagues attended the function and made it memorable. I could say my dad was the happiest person that day :)

Feb – At IBM we completed our first Android project and I was lucky to be given the opportunity to do the presentation in front of Global Delivery Team. That was an unforgettable day for my team when each of us received an appreciation mail from the GD leaders.

March – Got an opportunity to work with Mobile Monday Bangalore team to host the first of its kind, Mobile Developer Conference. The event turned out to be a big success, so much that people ask me when we are planning to have MODC part 2 in 2011.

At the end of the month I was officially married to Android: P, as I was honored as an “Android Evangelist at GBS”.

April – As I believed in giving blind person vision by donating your eyes, I donated my eye to Eye Bank Association of India.
The question is "How would u continue to live after u are gone"
"I will live my eyes to an eye bank and help someone see this beautiful world through my eyes."

May – Got busy with my passion, conducted Android trainings at IBM. If my math is right, trained around 50 + Java professional on Android Application development.

We had our All Hands Meet (AHM) for O2 Uk at Royal Orchid. After this event, I was known as Miss Entertainer and it made me realized that I am more than a bathroom singer. It feels nice when (now) my X-colleagues call me and mention they liked the way I sang my favorite song “Words” at the event.

June – I was enjoying my life at IBM and I was very proud of being an IBMer.
IBM is always been an innovator, and it gave me an opportunity to prove myself.
My idea got a business approval, did the coding & when it went live the feeling was just out of the world. I could say it were those 5.5 million customers, who inspired me :)

I was playing all my dream roles: Programmer + Team Lead + Trainer + Evangelist, + Anchor + Singer & also a News Letter editor all at a time.

July – Time for celebration as I completed a year in Bangalore. Like to thank all my friends and relatives for welcoming me with open arms and making my stay so lovely.

Life was just too good and perfect, but then I decided to take up new challenges and move from a service company to a product based company – Motorola. My fascination towards Moto devices tempted me to be a Motorolan.

Aug – Joined dance classes, where on weekends I was learning Hip-Hop and Jazz on weekdays I was learning contemporary dance form. Dance is my all time passion, and I just dance for myself.
On the other side, I was having fun developing enterprise application for Motorola most talked and most wanted android phones.

Sep – People called me fool when I rejected my x-Company Oracle's amazing job offer;

and most of them called me insane when I did not took up the Google India job opportunity.

I never thought that I would be offered a documentary film to act in (it was based on a classical dancers life), I rejected it saying "I am suffering from camera phobia".

I knew that I hurted most of the people at this time (specially my google friends); but it was the time where I was trying to understand what exactly I wanted to do out of my life and career.

I was bided an emotional farewell from the company where my stay was the shortest. Till then had no idea how much I was wanted, adored and popular at Motorola… that was the most emotional movement of the year and I will cherish it forever.

Oct – I started my career again as an Evangelist and I was happy being a part of Teleca.

To bring ADL in India was a dream of me and few of my android passionate friends and we finally made it happen.

London was calling me at the end of this month and I started off for my first international visit.

Nov – I had some of my best time in London
Participated at Droidcon and Planet of Apps Europe, meet some amazing people and leant a bit more about life.

Conducted a workshop at Mobile Developer Summit, Bangalore and spoke at Bangalore Android Meetup about Dual Display for Android

Dec – I was now officially a part of Teleca Global Solutions and marketing team, and my job profile got carved well. I was happy of what I would be doing henceforth.

When you win a proposal you feel good and I was floating in this feeling.

As the year gave me lots of success, joys, happiness, fame, money and a goal, I planned to celebrate it in my home town with my family and friends.
Visited Pune after a long gap of 1 year and the traditional + rich with culture city again hugged me with lots of warmth and love. Visited my school and met school friends, took a walk around my collage campus. As it took me to a flash-back, I said to God:

“Give me some sunshine
Give me some rain
Give me another chance
I wanna grow up once again”

Wish list for 2011

Not many but few Wishes for New Year 2011

* Stopover 3 different lovely cities across the Globe.

* Celebrate Birthday on an island.

* Tag on my passion without failing once in a month

* Sponsor an orphon child

* Conduct atleast one face yoga workshop

* Minimun two blog post every month

* Find someone who knocks me off my feet

* Thanks Giving at Golden Temple

* Bake whats called the perfect Chocolate Cake

* More of tech talks and blogging

* Keep up the smile no matter how worst things get

* Stand on the cities tallest building, kiss the sky and sing my favorite song

* A day in a Jungle

* Play an Adventure sport