On November 1, 2006 Craig Mundie, Chief Research & Strategy Officer, Microsoft, was busy launching Windows Embedded CE 6.0. About 4000 engineers from around the world had logged in to watch Mundie over the webcast as he talked about the evolution of Windows CE over time, since its first release (Handheld PC) in 1996.

A group of embedded engineers in Bangalore were glued to their desktops to know about the latest ingredients of Win CE. They were excited about the additional capability of the CE 6.0 new kernel. More so, they were excited to know about the expanded shared source code which includes the entire kernel. CE’s kernel is the first and only real-time kernel available in source code form!

This group of engineers had got together in 2004 to form the WinEmbedded Group. Their goal: To create awareness about Windows CE and Windows Mobile (customized platform for general PDA use) among embedded software professionals across India. The forum also intended to share the understanding about the usability of the tools among its members.

Although there were initial hiccups to kick-start the activities, the group was strengthened by technical evangelists from Microsoft. The group’s broader agenda took the form of Mobile & Embedded Developers Conference (MEDC).

One of their professing methods was to conduct Hands-on-Lab sessions—a process where Windows CE and Windows Mobile software is used to develop an application. Such sessions receive a great response from both the professional and student community. When the first session was conducted in 2005 on Windows CE 4.2, registration had to be closed one week before the lab session, due to the over-flowing response. In a typical session, participants learn the fundamentals of embedded computing, the development life cycle of an embedded OS. And then they are guided to build their OS using the Platform Builder.

The success of Hands-on-Lab sessions has encouraged the group to take it to the corporate and the colleges. Recently a training session was conducted for L&T Infotech. The Group is in talks with Mindtree, Satyam, Infosys, Wipro, Mphasis for similar sessions. On the college front, students from M.S.Ramaiah Institute of Technology, RV College of Engineering, RNS Institute of Technology, Bangalore Institute of Technology have benefited from these courses.

Most of the group’s activities take place offline. Webinars are organized each month and telecasted live all over India. At regular intervals, meetings are organized wherein members get to meet the experts. Community talks by industry stalwarts and experts working on embedded systems are also organized.

In future, the group intends to translate its learning into practical real world applications. For this, the group plans to take up community projects. For instance, there is a plan to develop an application for a restaurant. Usually customers have to wait for the waiter to take their order. Can customers sending their requests over a PDA on the table eliminate the wait time? Whether or not you will be ordering on a PDA next time around, for sure the prospect of working on a live project is an exciting proposal for tech enthusiasts.