Charting Lithuania's MVP Landscape: Mantas Umbrasas' Power Platform Odyssey and Cultural Delights

Mark Smith: 0:06
Welcome to the MVP show. My intention is that you listen to the stories of these MVP guests and are inspired to become an MVP and bring value to the world through your skills. If you have not checked it out already, I do a YouTube series called how to Become an MVP. The link is in the show notes. With that, let's get on with the show. Today's guest is from Lithuania. He works at McCore as a power platform developer. He was the first awarded as MVP in 2024. As an early adopter and advocate of the power platform, he played a pivotal role in introducing and integrating these technologies within various projects and initiatives. You can find full links to his bio, social media etc. In the show notes for this episode. Welcome to the show, Mantas.

Mantas Umbrasas: 0:59
Hello, hello, glad to be here.

Mark Smith: 1:03
Good to have you on the show. Are you still based in Lithuania?

Mantas Umbrasas: 1:06
Yep, yep, I'm currently sitting in Vilnius, so it's quite early for me.

Mark Smith: 1:11
Wow, wow, wow. That's crazy. Tell me a bit about food, family and fun. What do they mean for you?

Mantas Umbrasas: 1:22
Yeah, it's actually one of the most important things, right, because me and my family, my girlfriend we actually like food a lot like, for example, fine dining, and it's an interesting topic, especially this week, because we just got finally our first Michelin reviews and recommendations here within Lithuania. It took a while, but, yeah, finally we got some recommendations for Michelin stars, et cetera. So I really like food and the family spending time together, especially in the summer you know it's grilling season all around.

Mark Smith: 2:05
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just refresh my geography. Where is Lithuania?

Mantas Umbrasas: 2:11
Yeah, so we are one of the Baltic states. Our closest and biggest neighbor, and, I would say, the biggest friend, is Poland, because we have a lot of history together. We've been even the combined country once. So yeah, and from the Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia we are the biggest one. We have the biggest population and biggest in the square meters. We have a lot of space because, for comparison, we are bigger than Netherlands but we have way less people, so you can find a lot of nature If somebody loves nature and you will be visiting Europe. I highly recommend it Because, especially if you're from the bigger cities, bigger countries and you're tired of seeing people around and you just want to be on your own, it's easy to find, to rent a cabin in front of Lake without anyone around you.

Mark Smith: 3:17
Nice, nice. Back on the restaurant, the Michelin star, et cetera. What's your number one favorite restaurant that you've ever been to?

Mantas Umbrasas: 3:32
I would say probably it's. I don't say that I don't like Lithuanian food, but just we have this potato-based dishes a lot. So Modern Cuisines now is experimenting with with it, and I like how we do and incorporate things. But you know, it's maybe always you. You like to try it out something, something from other cultures. So, for example, I personally really like indian food. Uh, so yeah, been, I didn't remember exact names, but there are a couple of Indian restaurants and I probably will give first place to one Spain Michelin restaurant. I think it was a two-star Michelin restaurant in Ronda. So it was just a whole experience for us. You know, especially those foods which open up different flavors, when you put something in your mouth and you do not understand what exactly is happening Different foods. I think in general, those dinners are more experience, less actual eating. You can eat nice food at home. Your mother, father, grandpa can make you really nice food, but when you go to the restaurants it's more for experience, less for actual food.

Mark Smith: 4:53
Nice, you're so right. I went to a restaurant in Moscow and it was a guy that was bringing back the traditions, pre, pre, uh, you know, um, communism, the traditions of food, because communism, of course, dulled everything down to a standardized what you had to eat, and one of the things I ate there was moose lips, and it's like exactly what you said. Moose lips like, um, you know what am I eating, eating, but the flavors and what he brought to life I think it was White Rabbit was the name of the restaurant. It was just amazing. So I get what you mean by food. How did you get into the Power Platform?

Mantas Umbrasas: 5:38
It's. Actually I would be most helpful to my vet manager when I worked in the company, just because he was really open-minded and I'm really glad to have the opportunity to work with that kind of people, because it was times when, at least here in Lithuania, the clients were still migrating to the cloud Microsoft 365. And we had these discussions like you come. You see those old IT guys who are judging all the cloud thingy. Microsoft will store our data. I'm not sure if I can do it and we were also delivering some document management systems based on SharePoint and also on SharePoint Online. Sharepoint on-premise was more popular and I was doing configuration because I never actually liked too much web programming. I have a degree in computers, but still it was, like you know, my mouth shut and just started thinking, okay, I need to pass this. I always hate this not seeing the actual result and troubleshooting every code offline. And I was configurating those SharePoint solutions. And then Microsoft introduced the Power Apps and Power Automate as an extension of Dynamics and my colleague just started working with Power BI and and he also was just learning and I came to my manager and said, look, microsoft introduced something which I think could be beneficial Instead of buying custom solution and configuring things for the clients. We could try to build something. And he said yeah, go for it. If you can build simple vacation process on it, I will try to sell it.

Mantas Umbrasas: 7:33
And this is how the journey basically started. I think Shane Young already was around, so he was probably one of the first guys and MVPs whose video I started watching. It was tough times, because it's always tough when you're alone. You're just scrolling through forums. It's impossible to Google something because the platform is totally new. You're inventing, you're always doubting yourself if you did everything according to the best practice, but best practice kind of do not exist until then. So it was an interesting journey. When one colleague joined my team, then I became kind of a lead because I knew something. He didn't know anything and the roller coaster started rolling.

Mark Smith: 8:25
Basically, that is so cool. Now in Lithuania, what data center do you use for Microsoft for Lithuanian based projects?

Mantas Umbrasas: 8:37
To be honest, I'm not sure, because when I joined Mako I basically five years ago I switched international. So you know, I'm trying to keep up with the Lithuanian colleagues, especially when I'm running the Power Platform community here within Lithuania. I ask what we do, how is the project going? But our clients is now based basically in Netherlands and Germany, and also international clients, for sure, if we have like opcos in different countries.

Mark Smith: 9:12
So tell us a bit about McCore. What's their core business? I noticed that, yeah, they're across the Netherlands, germany and Lithuania and obviously have international customers. But tell us a bit about the business, because I see other MVPs work there as well. Right, true, true.

Mantas Umbrasas: 9:28
Good colleagues also from Power Platform and from data. Good colleagues also from Power Platform and from data. Yeah, so we basically in the beginning, when I came to Macau, the Power Platform if I just orientate to the Power Platform business it was, you know it's filled a little bit like migrations to the cloud. What is this power platform? How we do it? And we already had a couple of big clients like Heineken, who were kind of mature on it and we were together in flow with Microsoft Story to build the citizen developers community within the company, microsoft story to build the citizen developers community within the company. So it was nice to see that there is actually big companies who are trusting the platform and letting them build.

Mantas Umbrasas: 10:23
Then, after maybe three years, working on all the smaller projects so almost every time a standard project was in Power Platform, we had a team Already. It was like, I think, seven people in the beginning after three or four years, within Lithuania I mean, and it was like 10 plus after three years. But it's still. You have colleagues, but in the project you are alone because you cannot work together on the same project, you cannot edit the same project, you cannot edit the same apps, same power automates, etc. So it it's felt like you're part of a team but kind of still alone working on the project. But it changed and the bigger projects came and multiple developers developers started joining and I think the whole platform shifted. And I think Mocoa also could be part of it because we had those business-critical projects and the company trust built something really critical on the platform itself.

Mark Smith: 11:31
How much has the community played in the success of your career, either the community you developed in lithuania, the global community or even the community in it with inside macaw. How much does community play a part in in where you are in your career?

Mantas Umbrasas: 11:52
I think this was one of the biggest points why I actually switched to Makov, from a smaller company, because it's always nice even when you are not working on the project with someone, to have those brainstorming discussion sessions before you know. Uh, you know we just sit like uh with one colleague. We come to the office also really helps and you know you sometimes just sit, drink coffee like you're discussing about like a game which you played or or food which you ate, but, uh, same as we discuss about projects, you know I a new project and I have an idea to do this and this. What do you think? I think it's really important from that perspective.

Mantas Umbrasas: 12:41
Either it's within my colleagues at the coffee machine when you have discussions, or within the Lithuanian community, when somebody comes with totally different projects because we work in. Like, for example, one guy came and he said you know, I'm actual analyst of a basketball team one of the best basketball team and I'm building power apps for them to track statistics and you just wow, they're also using power apps. Okay, that's really cool, man, and you try to help him and discussing all the possibilities, what you can do. So I think it's fun and I really like that in Lithuania and in global. The community in general is growing within the Power Platform and people understand that. Yeah, we're kind of competitors, but we can also still share the information. We shouldn't look that way, because I help you, you help me. You cannot know everything. It's impossible to know every edge case and everything yeah, so true.

Mark Smith: 13:52
How did you end up becoming becoming an MVP? What was that process for you? How did you get nominated? Who nominated you? How did you find out about the MVP program? What were all those things around becoming an MVP for you?

Mantas Umbrasas: 14:16
mccall. First it meant a minimal valuable product. Then I realized that there is a double meaning. Also, the mvp, you know, most valuable player in computer games. I knew it from there.

Mantas Umbrasas: 14:21
But uh, yeah, so, uh, my colleague valerius, uh, he was running uh kind of uh, he was an ambassador within lithuania, pushing people to become an MVP and just basically encouraging. You know, there is a program you can do something. Okay, he introduced and I thought maybe it would be interesting. Then I spoke with Rebecca, our colleague, and then I realized, okay, it's a lot of personal time also involved. I need to think about it.

Mantas Umbrasas: 14:58
And yeah, I was doubting and doing something, not doing like helping to run community but not actually participating in conferences, and I'm not even sure what was the final break point. But probably one colleague from Macau, also from Lithuania, she suggested that maybe you want to do a session together, like a double power session, because she's from Power BI and from Power Apps. Let's do some integrated project or something and let's showcase it. Maybe let's do podcast discussions. And I thought, okay, I think it would be more fun to do it not alone.

Mantas Umbrasas: 15:42
Then the roller coaster started rolling and then, yeah, I figured out okay, I need to now focus on this to actually gather as much as possible contributions. It is to actually gather as much as possible contributions. And, lucky of me, you know microsoft as a, as a microsoft in lithuania is not so big. So I knew some people from microsoft lithuania so I said, maybe, because you see I'm doing here within your office some stuff maybe also together with within your office, some stuff, maybe also together with other community people here, maybe you could recommend it. What do you think? Is it enough? And we had a discussion and they basically nominated me here within Microsoft Lithuania.

Mark Smith: 16:27
That's awesome. Are you the first BizApps MVP in Lithuania? Yeah, wow. Is there any other MVPs in other tech areas in Lithuania?

Mantas Umbrasas: 16:40
Yep, it was always a couple of people from the security, I think, and from Asia. And after I got nominated, after a month we got extra two One for M365 and one also for BizApps.

Mark Smith: 16:59
Awesome, awesome. Now you know when you do your community stuff in Lithuania. Is that I take it? That's not in English, right? You do it natively, native language.

Mantas Umbrasas: 17:09
It's always a debate, because you know, because everybody speaks English, but when it's your not native language, it doesn't matter how, unless you actually lived in an English-speaking country you still have this barrier where you cannot properly communicate from the thoughts and maybe discuss. You're a bit afraid because there's still people. So we're trying to do mix and match. That means that if a speaker comes, we will be inviting, by the way, for summer online meeting, for example. So we try to do sometimes on-site, sometimes online, and if a person joins who speaks English and gives presentation in English, that's totally fine. So because you know, it's a maybe it's a geopolitical situation, which we can be thankful, but a lot of Belarusians also now are, especially from the technology area. Some big IT companies also moved here to Vilnius, to Lithuania. So in the office, for example, we also speak English a lot of the time because we have one Belarusian guy, one guy from Macedonia and from Germany too. So you know we have nice women. So it's quite common to have a 14-year-old marrying a Lithuanian woman and move here.

Mark Smith: 18:47
Ah, aha aha, Interesting, interesting, interesting. Well, it's been so good talking to you. Last question I have for you is what project have you been involved in that you're most proud of?

Mantas Umbrasas: 19:02
Probably being involved. It's not even related to the job. It was like my colleague from a previous company called and said maybe you could help I'm not sure if there will be even money involved for the government to build a Power App for a demo to demonstrate. Help Microsoft to build a Power App to demonstrate that online voting is possible like voting for government institutions, because when Corona started we were not able to work together and they said, yeah, let's go, and we actually had a hell of a weekend to build a prototype and to show to actual government institutions that it's possible. So in the end the parliament was not using it, it just they just tested. But that's fine, not always it should be a great success. But uh, some local authorities actually were using it and some of them it's even using now Nowadays the app which I was involved to build and it was really interesting to do it in Power Apps.

Mark Smith: 20:22
Hey, thanks for listening. I'm your host business application MVP Mark Smith, otherwise known as the NZ365 guy. If you like the show and want to be a supporter, check out buymeacoffeecom. Forward slash nz365guy. Thanks again and see you next time. Thank you.