There and Back Again: A Global Azure Adventure Through the Italian Peninsula

Connecting Communities with Azure Italia Podcast, written by Carlo Sacchi

The continuation of our Azure Train journey - from Vicenza's morning bells to Milan's evening lights

"The road goes ever on and on..."

—Bilbo Baggins

The alarm rings at 4:45 AM. The Global Azure Train departs at 6:45 from Milan. Like Bilbo preparing for his unexpected journey, even living in Milan I need that extra hour because, honestly, getting up early isn't our strongest skill (we envy those who master this art, think of all those lost hours of sleep!).

Our materials were prepared days in advance. We could've used checked luggage (microphones, cameras, gadgets, cables, podcast banner and stuff...), but like any proper adventure, we expected to return with more than we started with - gadgets, souvenirs, and memories from fellow community members. We even managed some training runs to prepare physically for the journey ahead. Our fundraising campaign (still open ) continues seeking those final donations for our cause.

Fortunately, we reach the train on time. Even more fortunately, the train runs on schedule, and we depart for Vicenza. Our quest begins.

Stage 1: Friday, May 9th - Vicenza

Stage 2: Saturday, May 10th - Pordenone

Bonus Stage: Monday, May 12th – Milan

Three days of intense community awaited us. These are the kind of events where you finally meet the people you've been liking, reposting, and chatting with online. No more rushed DMs or voice notes. It's about real conversations, face to face, understanding who stands before you, and appreciating both their human and technical value. And here, we have plenty of both, as always.

Two hours fly by, and we arrive in Vicenza. The venue is Elevator Hub (www.elevatorhub.it), a brand new coworking space that hosts startups, companies, and professionals. For this occasion, they generously made almost their entire structure available to us.

Andrea and Luigi, the local organizers from Azure Meetup Veneto, are already prepared, greeting everyone with big smiles: us, the speakers, and participants. We from the Azure Italia Podcast distributed our stickers, feeding the classic and healthy gadget-mania typical of tech events. Gotta love it.

A quick side note:

As Azure Italia Podcast, we have an important mission: to document and tell these stories, giving both professional and light-hearted coverage to these days. We want to show and emphasize the importance of participating in these events, explaining why participation matters. We aim to provide testimony both for those who couldn't attend and for those who are hesitant but would like to participate, maybe they're even afraid to ask their company for permission. Actually, we're specifically addressing companies: send your staff to these events, not because it's a day off (and we assure you: it's not), but because it's a unique method of contact with experts, MVPs, and Microsoft employees. It's the moment to ask questions, to inquire how something works, or to seek advice on how to best implement a real case you're developing.

Just like last year's Global Azure Train 2024 (as we wrote in this blog post), we aimed to bring more voices and stories to life, with interviews and, this time, video too.

Participants arrive. In-person tickets were sold out, and the rooms are packed. As a podcast, we begin our interview marathon that will last almost the entire day: with organizers, sponsors, speakers, volunteers, and participants. We collected everything in these videos you can watch here:

Video 1: Vicenza – Azure Italia Podcast coverage

The vibe? High energy, curious minds everywhere. Among the participants we interviewed, we had the pleasure of speaking with many professionals, some sent by their companies, others who took vacation days, freelancers, but all super curious. Some were on their first projects, others just looking for inspiration, or simply curious about the topic.

With three parallel tracks running simultaneously, some even organized into squads because interesting topics often overlapped, so to follow everything, each person would focus on their area of interest.

Main Room

What we loved about this Friday was definitely the spirit established between participants and speakers - interactions are always high quality, and availability is maximum.

When evening arrived, we packed our equipment, gave podcast t-shirts to the organizers as thanks, and departed for Pordenone together with Marco Obinu and Giuliano Latini. Meanwhile, the meetup ended, we said goodbye to participants and other speakers - some were leaving for Turin (the next day would host Global Azure Turin), others returning home.

We're already halfway through. Incredible.

Vicenza Speakers

Two hours of travel pass quickly (Marco and Giuliano are pillars of Azure evangelism in Italy, and we tried to absorb as much information and behind-the-scenes knowledge as possible).

In Pordenone, “speakers aperitivo” and dinner awaited us (in Vicenza there was always a speaker dinner, but it was the evening before), we couldn't miss these. Here too, spirits are high. Many of them have known each other for years; there's laughter and joking. Something a bit more challenging the next day, because professionalism must prevail.

Saturday's event takes place at the Consorzio Universitario di Pordenone, a historic location for 1nn0va meetup, the community behind this local Global Azure edition, founded by Marco Pozzan, and Led now by Marco Parenzan. With three classrooms and the main hall where both the keynote and sessions are held, the setting was perfect for a full day of sessions and networking.

Participants begin arriving, and with great satisfaction, the demographic changes slightly. Participation is enriched with university students from local STEM universities and some curious seniors, because we never stop learning.

We from the podcast also start our "work." The script doesn't change much, but today we had our own classroom reserved for us where we could set up our equipment and begin recordings.

We host Andrea Zanni - Director of the University Consortium of Pordenone, Marco Parenzan, speakers, and as always, we make our round of interviews. You can watch and listen to everything here:

Video 2: Pordenone – Azure Italia Podcast coverage

Pordenone Main Room

Beantech with Massimiliano Anziutti

Interviews

Pizza Time

Between classrooms and corridors, you breathe energy and desire to grow, to know (people and topics), and to learn. From our interviews (and we managed to get even the shy ones talking), this truly comes through.

Pordenone Speakers (and Carlo Sacchi)

Bonus content from Pordenone:

We made a connection to Global Azure Catania, which you can find at minute 21:00 of the second video. Hats off to the EtnaDev guys with Gaetano Paternò, this was their very first event since opening their meetup, and they nailed it! They even invited some diamonds of the Italian IT and evangelism scene like Emanuele Bartolesi. Excellent work!

Did you know there was also the Turin meetup on Saturday 10th? So three meetups in a single day. Crazy stuff. On our Telegram and WhatsApp channels, participants shared photos and thoughts, true community spirit.

Classroom with Andrea Tosato

This day also passes incredibly quickly, full and super interesting. But it's time to return home. The Global Azure Train has its return journey for us to Milan at 5 PM, taking 4 hours. We'll use them to start some editing.

Clearly, it wasn't over! Milan was missing from the roll call. Monday, May 12th, could we miss it? No. Here Andrea Saltarello and Lorenzo Barbieri from Azure Meetup Milan created another masterpiece. Microsoft Italia headquarters in Milan, with 2 rooms reserved for the meetup.

Milano Main Room with Codrina Merigo

Milano Room 2 with Lorenzo Barbieri

Here too, another type of participant - always professionals, but many more from schools and students moving between speeches to understand how AI works, what you can do in the cloud,how to use Copilot, how to develop their applications better.

We return home Monday evening with an amount of emotions, material, and happiness that has few equals.

Thanks to:

All organizers, institutions, sponsors, Trenitalia (incredibly on time, perhaps for us), but above all, all participants.

Just like Bilbo's unexpected journey led to greater adventures, our Global Azure Train continues to connect communities, share knowledge, and prove that the real treasure isn't the technology we learn, but the people we meet along the way.

Until next time.

Carlo Sacchi
Azure Italia Podcast