XtremeLabs was honored to sponsor the 2024 North America MCT Summit, that took place March 7-9 at the Element Hotel in Redmond, Washington. The North America MCT Summit is a global Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs) conference. MCTs train thousands of system administrators, developers, ICT managers and students annually. They have a significant influence on customer product choices and decision-making. This summit spanned three days and featured seminars on technical and instructional skill tracks: AI/Copilot, Azure/Data Platform, Dynamics/Power Platform, Microsoft WWL Engagement, and Trainer Instructional Skills. The attendees came from 21 countries and were glad to be reunited at an in-person event after participating in virtual events due to the global pandemic.
The event was hosted by Michael Corkery, Heather Severino, Ed Liberman and a group of terrific volunteers that made everyone feel at home.
Topics covered during the 2024 NA MCT Summit included:
- Peter De Tender, “Azure AI Shouldn’t be AI AI AI AI”
- Liberty Munson, “ Humanizing the Exam Experience- A Discussion on Certifications and Updates/Improvements to Exams.”
- Sasha Kranjac, “10 Do’s and Don’ts of (un)Successful Presentations”
- Heather Severino, “Be a More Effective Presenter, Speaker and Trainer with Microsoft 365 Tools”
- Staci Wayne “AI-Powered Office Mastery with ChatGPT in Excel, PowerPoint and Word”
We were happy to sponsor and attend this event, meet the Microsoft team and MCTs from around the world for group discussions, networking opportunities and one-on-one sessions. The summit provided us with a great opportunity to leverage our strategies around the transformational shift in the IT industry. XtremeLabs remains active in MCT engagement programs and during the MCT Summit we continued engaging with the MCT community to address their training needs accordingly. Our webinars, MCT meetups and annual conferences are geared towards equipping the MCT community with information about the tools, benefits and resources that are available to them for use with lab prep, classroom teaching and training. Our digital hands-on labs provide them and their students with the required experiential learning skills and tools.
A few highlights of the event included:
- The “MCT Program Updates from Microsoft” where Tracy Carisch provided helpful information about plans for updates / changes to the MCT program and efforts being made by Microsoft to better engage with MCTs.
- The “Art of Storytelling” session by James Whittaker where James shared interesting insights and experiences where good storytelling helped him engage with well known tech executives and win high value business contracts.
- The info session on, “MCT Lounge: Your VIP Pass to Program Info, Events, and Networking Opportunities” by Linda Larkan was an informative session on tools and resources that are being made available to MCTs via the Microsoft hosted and managed MCT Lounge.
As part of our MCT engagement program, we host MCT Meetups once a month with our next one on “In pursuit of excellence. Tips and tricks for improving your presentation skills” coming April 2024. If you are an MCT and would like to host one of our MCT Meetups, contact our Events Team.