Ahmadz Village

By: Bruno Silva
[Hello from the World series]

My name is Bruno Silva. I am from Portugal and I was glad to accept the Ahmad’s challenge to talk about my country and my experience as a college student and Microsoft Student Partner. I’m 21 years old, I live in Sintra (you can see a local monument in the photograph) near Lisbon (the Portuguese capital city).

I’m in the first year of the Information Systems and Computer Engineering Master. I am passionate about technology, and love to watch TV series (doing weekend marathons where I see an entire season! ). I like summer holidays to put my reading up-to-date and almost forget that college exists. Because a student’s life isn’t easy (or cheap) I’m also a part-time PHP programmer.

About Portugal

Portugal is a nice country to live. Tourism is a rising industry and there is people coming from all over the world to visit places like Algarve, Madeira and Azores well known about the landscape and night life.

Our culture is pretty well known all over the world. Names like Amália and Mariza made our traditional music genre Fado very popular. Our football players have a good reputation too, but I must admit that I am not a football fan. Shame on me :-)

Portugal has played a major role in the European context during the last semester of 2007. Portugal hold the Presidency of the European Union Council, during which was signed The Treaty of Lisbon, which is a huge step in the European project. Some Microsoft Student Partners helped the meetings related to the presidency with IT-infrastructure and Help Desk tasks :-)

About my University (and others)

I study in Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). The IST, created in 1911, is one of the largest and most reputed schools of engineering, science and technology in Portugal. With two conveniently located campuses, (Alameda in Lisbon and Taguspark in Oeiras), IST consists of ten Departments and one Autonomous Section that are responsible for teaching Undergraduate and Postgraduate programs.

I think that life in my university is pretty similar with life in other universities. We work a lot! But we manage to have some spare time too. There are a lot of gamers that love to take a break from work to play (Pro Evolution Soccer is a hit). We in technology universities are not geeks disconnected from the world. Cultural and sportive activities are part of our interests. As you can see in the photograph, people love to join and spend time together.

Even the academic curricular plan reflects this concern. I have 4 courses called Personal Portfolio (I,II,III and IV) where students are supposed to do extra-curricular activities that improve their soft skills and think seriously about the learning by writing a report. (e.g. of activities: volunteering, internships, academic activities, Erasmus, etc.)

About Microsoft Student Partners

I’m a Microsoft Student Partner since October of last year. In Portugal a Microsoft Student Partner stays at most for 2 years in the programme, but the majority of us stays just for one year. This way more Portuguese college students get a chance to learn and improve them in this Microsoft’s initiative.

In Portugal MSP’s activities are not only technical events organized for students in different colleges, we are also active in social causes. This Christmas, the program, for initiative of a fellow MSP gave an X-Box 360 to an orphanage, as a starting step of the interaction with this institution, which next step will be to give a chance for these children to learn how to use a computer (including some basic tools) and the Internet with us. We hope to give them some computers, to give continuity to this initiative.

Take a look at a automated translated page of my blog where I talk about some MSP-related activities. (I usually blog in English, but Portuguese related stuff I write in Portuguese, now I regret it ) You can also take a look at some senior MSP’s blogs of my country like Gonçalo Chaves.

Bruno Silva
Portuguese Microsoft Student Partner
http://www.brunosilva.net