Building a Tech Community: The Windows Insider Program with Dona Sarkar

FULL SHOW NOTES
https://podcast.nz365guy.com/106

• Personal and professional background – growing up in Detroit, taking up computer science, working at Siebel, etc. 
• Upcoming speaking engagement at a conference on digital inclusion 
• Journey to working with Microsoft 
• Career highlights in the past 14 years 
• Being a woman in tech: changes she has seen, her thoughts on the topic 
• How she encourages open-mindedness when people don’t come from a highly diverse background in a corporate team 
• About #DotheThing – what it is, her principle 
• Thoughts on encouraging students about the future possibility of careers that don’t even exist 
• The meaning behind #NinjaCat 
• Releasing code to the Insider Fast ring – wanting to have in cocreating product and making a better world using technology. Is it starting to flow over into other technology areas inside Microsoft? 
• Building a 16.5-million-people community – keeping the communications and the engagement level up; how they maintain the momentum year in and year out 
• Dona’s Ten Commandments for Community 
• Thoughts on the future of the Windows Insider Program 
• Advice to teams wanting to kick off a program from 0 and build a tech community 

Books Mentioned

• #DotheThing by Dona Sarkar – https://amzn.to/2J5DBhb 

Resources

• Windows Insider Program – https://insider.windows.com/en-us/ 
• Ghana Digital Roadmap Conference – https://microsoftcaregh.com/2019/05/16/ghana-digital-roadmap-conference-microsoft-windows-insider-chief-dona-sarkar-shares-simple-yet-often-overlooked-insights-on-digital-inclusion/

Support the show

If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith