Since we enjoy being up-to-date with everything that makes this world run so fast, we couldn’t miss this year’s Microsoft Summit that took place in Bucharest around the topic of digital transformation. In case you couldn’t make it or just want a recap., here are a couple of inside scoops.

As soon as we arrived at the location, we printed our passes and stepped into a world we like. Lots of people talking about one thing —technology. K.c. And The Sunshine Band immediately started playing in my head:

"Oh, that's the way, uh-huh uh-huh

I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh”.

For many, Microsoft’s HoloLens was amongst the main attractions before the presentations started.  As usual, once you put on the HoloLens, you are in another, yet the same world.  At that very moment, you only have two thoughts: be amazed by the experience, and run away from the others, so you can keep them a little longer.

The event started with Gabriela Matei, the Country Manager of Microsoft in Romania, whose opening speech made everyone feel they are in the right place, eagerly anticipating what is to come.

Soon enough, UK’s WIRED Chief Editor David Rowan, stepped on the stage with the big screen behind him saying “Why the world will never move this slowly again”. Since his first sentence, I knew that his presentation was going to be a delight, and I was right. He talked about drones and how they are used to entertain the world in different ways, like doing selfies, dragging kids on snowboards to even transporting people.

The next topic was about autonomous vehicles, and if you ask me, they’re innovative but scary at the same time. I can’t imagine having a truck behind me with no driver inside, sweating at every brake and thinking “what if it doesn’t brake?”. But this might change. David gave us the example of AT&T, with cellphones taking off spectacularly. At that time, AT&T was the biggest company of landlines and needed reassurance they would not go out of business with cellphones becoming popular. They hired a consulting company to predict the number of cellphones in use by the end of the century that forecasted 900k+ devices. They were only slightly off: 900m+ devices were used by the end of 1999.

Another engaging presentation was the one hosted by the guys from CQURE and GUNVOR on the topic of security. A different approach as they showed us live coding of breaking a virtual machine and faking a virus to make it look clean. As they were talking about security, their screen went on and off as if it was hacked. We were wondering if it was on purpose, but no, it was just a bug. Or at least, that’s what they told us.

To sum up, given the theme of the conference and after all I’ve seen there, my thoughts have been reinforced once again: stay up-to-date or be forgotten in the Digital Transformation Era!

Microsoft will be making the conference materials available, including videos of the presentations and we will be posting them here. So, stay tuned!