GuruStop.NET

This list:

• Ahmed Bahaa
• Ahmed Farrag
• Ahmed Nagy
• Ahmed Sidky
• Andrew Pardoe
• oris Jabes
• Goksin Bakir
• Mohamed Nar
• Mohamed Zaki
• Nohal Rady
• Patrick Hynds

For more details about each, check the official speakers page. The sessions associated with some speakers are not yet announced.

Some of the names that interest me:

• Ahmed Bahaa (One of the best local speakers I had, who later I insisted to have as my friend)
• Andrew Pardoe (A solid CLR guy – You know this kind of heroes!)
• Patrick Hynds (A great fun speaker, with great knowledge, I have reservations though this year mentioned in my earlier post)

More details about EDC 2008 here.

From MDC to EDC

In 2003, Microsoft Egypt started a public technical event called Middleeast Developers Conference (MDC). MDC was an annual event usually held by the end of January or beginning of February, lasting for 4 full days, day zero with local speakers talking about most recent Microsoft technologies, and day 1 to 3 with international speakers showing the latest previews of pre-release Microsoft technologies and development related products. It was honored by the presence of Bill Gates for the keynote in 2004 and 2005.

For long, it has been the only public event related to Microsoft technologies (besides the product launches of course). The attendees counted in thousands when there was even no active user groups in Egypt or individuals holding their own technical events. Even later with the presence of other one-day events, MDC was still the biggest technical event ever that most Egyptian developers working with .NET technologies wait all the year (even with critic that the last 2 rounds had about turning from pre-release previews to sometimes 1-year old repeated sessions!).