Last week in Montreal Microsoft held its annual Tech Days conference with great success. They also outreached to some local Open Source communities here in Montreal; PHP Quebec, ConnFoo.ca, PHUG, and others to help organizer a free event called Career Demo Camp. Over 100 people showed up to listen to local developers some really code, apps, and more. Some of the presenters included local celebrities like Sylvain Carle of Praized, Marc Laporte, TikiWiki.org and n00bs like Pierre-Luc Beaudoinwho demo a really cool new site called L’Agenda du libre du Québec .

The night ended with some fun socializing over beers at Les 3 Brasseurs

Drinking with Microsoft
The last night of Tech Days High Road Communications held an intimate blogger circle and Open Source social at the funky W Hotel in Montreal. This place is awesome for holding social events, I felt like I was in a James Bond movie, or as Joey DeVilla tweeted “In a suite at the W Hotel Montreal with Austin Powers level of swank”.

The night opened with Nik Garkusha, Microsoft Canada – Open Source Strategy Lead, discussing how Microsoft is reaching out to Open Source communities by collaborating on projects and getting involved in social events like WordCamp, DemoCamp, etc.

Other speakers included:

• Brendan Sera-Shriar (me ), PHUG/DigiBomb
  
• Marc Laporte , TikiWiki
• Yann Larrivée, PHP Quebec

This was a great idea to get a bunch influential people together in one room to socialize and network over some really great food and drinks. A big thank you to all the organizers and everyone who showed up for both days of festivities.

You can view the rest of the photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/phug/