Inside Windows Phone #26: Windows Phone LOVES Student Developers!

In this edition of Inside Windows Phone, we welcome Microsoft's resident Ninja Ben Lower to the stage to talk about all the things we're doing to help student developers get started building outstanding apps and games for Windows Phone.

Here are a bunch of links to the various things we talked about:

• TouchDevelop. An amazing platform on top of Windows Phone for programming, directly ON your Windows Phone. Check out their complete website, or download the app directly.
• XAPfest. Xapfest is a periodic training event led by Ben, in a number of different venues. You can watch a video of a XAPfest presentation here.
• Update to Mango. We've published many resources about how to update your application to Mango. Here are some of my favorites: (1) My blog entry on 'Mango Resources for Developers", (2) My blog entry on Mango Application Compatibility, and (3) The MSDN Library on What's New in the Windows Phone SDK. There are also a TON of code samples and 'how to' documents in the Library about using Mango functionality.
• The Hawaii Project. Learn more about Project Hawaii here. You can also find more information about the contest we ran here.
• Sketchflow for Windows Phone. You can find this add on for Expression Blend here. Note, this does require that you have the full, purchased version of Expression Blend, but if you are a student, you can get this for free via the DreamSpark program.

... and of course, you can always follow up on what we're doing via our Windows PhoneOfficial Developer Blog

Please let us know if you have any questions! You can contact Ben directly at phoneninja@microsoft.com. I'm available on twitter at @larryalieberman