Underemployed Developers: Meet Project Phoenix

A few months back, Microsoft gave MVPs a few MSDN Ultimate subscriptions to pass on to community members, no strings attached.  I quietly gave mine to a few deserving folks who I thought could be future MVPs, but Arnie Rowland (Blog – @ArnieRowland) had a better idea.

Arnie’s Project Phoenix encourages developers to propose a software project for a non-profit agency, school, or church.  Non-profits can also submit their own proposals, and Arnie will hook up developers with those projects.

Phoenix and Question Mark

Every week, Arnie will select one developer & project to get a bunch of cool benefits including:

• Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN subscription
• Pluralsight On-Demand .NET Training Library for 3 months
• 3 APress books of the winner’s choice
• 3 O’Reilly ebooks of the winner’s choice
• ComponentOne Studio Enterprise
• 2 Microsoft certification exams
• Quest Toad for SQL Server
• Plus some developers will be awarded tools from DBSophic, DevExpress, RedGate, and more.

Working with a nonprofit is a great way for you to get experience, references, and community exposure when you’re struggling to get to the next rung of your career.  Nonprofits really appreciate your help, and they need every bit of tech savvy they can get.  I applaud Arnie’s vision to connect nonprofits, developers, and vendors to create something that benefits everybody.  Arnie, you’re an inspiration to all of us.

If you know an unemployed or underemployed developer, encourage them to visit the Project Phoenix page and volunteer.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

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