Whether you want to build an AJAX-based web application, or a Windows game, the Academic Resource Kit is a great place to start. A Microsoft Romania initiative aimed at driving technology access and adoption, ARK is designed as a comprehensive collection of tools and resources addressing both the development and design aspects of building software solutions. I had the chance to chat with Microsoft Romania’s Todi Pruteanu about the ARK initiative, and the interview below will provide you with a great insight into the Academic Resource Kit.

1. Just to get started, please tell our readers who you are and what is your role at Microsoft.Pruteanu: My name is Todi Pruteanu, my role is Academic Developer Evangelist at Microsoft Romania for more than 4 years now.
2. What is the Academic Resource Kit and how does it benefit students today?Pruteanu: ARK is a set of powerful development and design tools plus useful educational resources, such as documentation, code samples, curriculum materials, and tutorials that demonstrate the value of the Microsoft platform in technical education.The result is a fully loaded DVD that we’ve produced in a quantity of 100,000. We have disseminated most of the copies during the summer and in back-to-school campaigns, especially in High Schools and Universities. The product is described on www.microsoft.ro/ark (in Romanian).
3. Please tell us a little about the background of the initiative. In what manner has it evolved since its introduction?Pruteanu: It all started with a couple of facts we have in mind.On one side, we need more and better equipped professionals in the IT industry. We hope that ARK, with the technology included and usage scenarios we’ve described, will create enthusiasm amongst the young audience.

For instance, it has never been easier to program games for Windows or Xbox 360 consoles or Web applications or data-intensive applications, to describe only a couple of usage scenarios of ARK - we now hope that the young developers will realize even more the magic of the software and will follow a career in information technology. For the more experienced students, ARK should play the role of free tool set always available for school or personal projects.To summarize, we hope that ARK will influence the number and the quality of the professionals in the IT industry in the years to come.On the other side, technology access and adoption has been a priority for many years now at Microsoft, for the STEM students. Speaking now for just Romania, MSDN Academic Alliance is a very popular program that enables free technology access for students, with some tens of thousands of product downloads each year. MSDN AA is essentially a program for STEM departments and most of such departments in the country are members of this program.

Going forward, our product teams in Redmond produce quality educational programs that, on top of our technology access programs, help students and professors better experience our products. Let’s take Windows Academic Program: students in Computer Science have access to Windows NT kernel source code, professors have access to curriculum materials we’ve built over the past years to encourage Faculty teaching Windows as a platform at Operating Systems classes. This is something relatively new from Microsoft and students and professors appreciate a lot this content. But wait, there are many other similar programs, in areas such as Web design and development or database development. We’ve put all this content in Academic Resource Kit.

So, to summarize, ARK is a good exercise we did to include free tools and educational resources from Microsoft in one disk, impacting technology access and adoption. So, to summarize, ARK is a good exercise we did to include free tools and educational resources from Microsoft in one disk, impacting technology access and adoption. We have seen positive reactions from students and professors who received Academic Resource Kit, online on forums and blogs but also in-class, where we know many professors will use it in teaching technology.4. What tools and resources does Microsoft offer with the Academic Resource Kit?Pruteanu: As mentioned, the product is described in www.microsoft.ro/ark (in Romanian). It includes tools such as the Express editions of Visual Studio and SQL Server, ASP.NET AJAX, IronPython, Windows PowerShell, Virtual PC and Virtual Server. On the resources side, it contains curriculum materials for Windows and SQL Server, security teaching materials, documentation and code samples for Visual Studio and SQL Server or episodes from our Behind the Code show on Channel 9.

Download pdf Free Tools and Resources from Microsoft - Academic Resource Kit