Just this past Saturday, March 22nd, Nokia hosted DVLUP Day in Manhattan’s new Microsoft offices. A group of students from Seidenberg attended together to learn about mobile development for Microsoft products. The goal of DVLUP Days, as they sweep across the country, is to generate Windows Mobile developers. DVLUP itself is “a loyalty program designed by Nokia to help developers get their ideas into the marketplace, optimize them, and be successful” (DVLUP FAQ).
Undergraduate Seidenberg student, Brooke Ribelin, spoke of her experience at DVLUP Day with all the other Seidenberg attendees. She explained that at the event there were three separate tracks, with different goals for each. Track One was geared towards getting started in App Studio (Cloud-based with HTML5), Track Two was for advanced Windows development, which included working with maps, imaging, and Cloud development, and Track Three taught attendees how to use Unity for game development. Each track suited different skill-sets and interests, so our group of students split up between themselves to work on exactly what they wanted.
Brooke also mentioned the prizes and raffles that continued throughout the day — from headphones to fun tattoos to new phones to backpacks. Seemingly everyone left the event with all kinds of free stuff. Not only did participants get new gizmos galore, but those who can publish an app in the Windows store will receive a free Windows phone.
After spending the entire day at Microsoft for the event, Brooke says she greatly appreciated the introduction to Unity. Being quite new to the ecosystem of Unity, and by learning about it in a group format, she has the tools to continue using what she built at DVLUP Day to turn it into something for the app store.