Journeys and Success Stories
INDIA:
PEARL
Imagine Cup 2009 Software Design
Team Members:
Yogita Rochlani
, Sujay Kakarmath
, Sameet Singh
, Noel Sequeira
and Dr. Sunita Shanbhag (Mentor)
Imagine Cup 2009 was an amazing journey for team PEARL. From the outset, our mentor helped us ask some very fundamental questions and ground our perceptions through rural visits. We're a team of medical and engineering students; we believe the world's toughest challenges can be addressed best by well-rounded teams that can bring different perspectives to the table. PEARL is an acronym for Proactive Emergency Alerting and Response Loop. The concept was so well received that Pronexus, the company behind VBVoice - an integral cog in our solution, agreed to extend the software to us free of cost! We're looking forward to running a pilot soon. Sameet and Noel have been through the Imagine Cup experience before, winning the Interoperability Award at Imagine Cup 2008.
EGYPT:
ATOM
Imagine Cup 2009 Game Development
Team Members:
Ahmed Mustafa Talat, Gina Safaa Eldin Mahmoud, Khalid Medhat Said, Mohamed Safaa and Eldin Mahmoud
We are friends from one school. Our story started when Ahmed and Mohamed met in June 2008 and decided to make their own game. Ahmed loves writing and drawing. He is always drawing many characters that he wants to see come alive. Mohamed has the passion to build his own game. Gina joined us because she also loves drawing. We invited Khalid in August 2009. When Imagine Cup 2007 started Khalid joined Software Development as he loves computers but he had no idea about how to program so he decided to learn a programming language and picked C#. When Khalid joined us he faced a problem to help us using the platform we chose before. he then recognized that Microsoft offers an easy platform “GDK.” While he was visiting the page of GDK he found that Microsoft offers a new platform XNA with C# that target Xbox360 we then started to build our game using XNA. For our good luck, we found that the Imagine Cup 2009 Game Development competition rules allowed us to use XNA which gave us experience and self-confidence that we sure were on the right road.
NORWAY:
NITHWalkers
Imagine Cup 2009 Game Development
Team Members:
Bjornar Herstad, Stig Rue Skansgård, Marius Brendmoe, and Michael Iversen
Two of us participated in the Imagine Cup 2008 with good results. We then decided to make a new team with the best students at our school. We gained a lot of experience from participating in the Imagine Cup. As a designer I gained real experience from writing the design and developing this through a long period. At school you never get this kind of experience, so I strongly recommend every student participate in Imagine Cup and gain this real experience. The programmers have learned more than they ever would as normal students and they both have a part-time job as a result from their Imagine Cup entry.
ARGENTINA:
UNDERDOGS
Imagine Cup 2009 Game Development
Team Members:
Julieta Chesini, Augusto Chesini and Javier Lenardón
We decided to participate in the Imagine Cup back in August of 2008. We met to talk and discuss the experience that each of us had. This discussion guided us to participate in the Game Development competition category. It took us 2 months to decide on one idea. It was at an annual exhibition of books, where the theme of education and problems of the world united and emerged in to the concept that we presented at the Imagine Cup 2009 Worldwide Finals contest. In either case we took a picture (right), where it looks like we agreed to participate on the idea and what we wanted to achieve with our project!
BRAZIL:
LEVV IT
Imagine Cup 2009 Game Development
Team Members:
Luciano José, Edgar Neto, Vinícius Ottoni, and Victor Rafael
We're four students from four different universities that got together with the goal of participating in this competition. Throughout the development process we've worked really hard and learned a lot about game design, about our world and about ourselves. A project that demands this kind of dedication and teamwork is a unique experience and opportunity to learn and grow both personally and professionally.
CHINA:
Peng Guo and
Jiaze Hua Imagine Cup 2008
Project Hoshimi - Silver Medal
Peng and Jiaze are great models for all Imagine Cup competitors. After winning a silver medal at the Imagine Cup last year in Paris, they felt stronger and more confident as competitors. Peng Guo, will graduate this summer, and has an offer from Alibaba (a very good company in China). Jiaze Hua, is joining the Software Design competition for Imagine Cup 2009 as a team leader, and trying his best to make a high-quality entry. Regarding their 2008 Imagine Cup experience, they shared the following: "There were 4 warm up competitions before the turn 2 selection. In the 2nd of the warm ups, we lost all of the games. In the 4th warm up, we only defeated one team. We didn’t give up – we kept moving forward. So when we got the chance to go to Paris for the World Finals- it was a roller coaster ride! One minute we were up and then we were down. In the end we got the silver medal! The experience of this competition taught us: never give up, just do the best. And… don’t forget to enjoy the game!"
UGANDA:
Native Green
Imagine Cup 2008- Software Design
Competed in Imagine Cup 2009
Team Members: Ivan Okori, David Musoke, Wycliffe Sagini and Joseph Kasolo
After competing in Imagine Cup 2008, the members of Native Green expected even more entries for 2009 and it was a tougher competition. The 2009 Worldwide Finals took place in Africa, and they expected a clear win by an African team, not only because of a home advantage, but to show the rest of the world that there is great technological talent in Africa. Africa can…yes, we all can.
The members of Native Green are in their final year Bachelors of Science in Computer Science students at Makerere University. Joseph and Ivan have a private firm VirgoMedia in Kampala that concentrates on software design, website development and IT solutions. David has his own company that works within the same solutions. Wycliffe works on contract with Keane Consulting Technologies as a software developer.
FRANCE:
Johanna RoweImagine Cup 2008
Bronze Medal - Interface Design
I am in my fifth and last year of studies in Strate College Designers (Design School). The Imagine Cup experience allowed me to meet a large number of people from many different places around the world. The competition was an opportunity to design a solution for one of the major issues facing all of us today : protecting the environment. In planning my design, I discovered new design tools like Expression Design and Expression Blend - both which proved very interesting from a creation perspective. The Imagine Cup has been a true ramp up for my career, and overall it was a very fulfilling experience. The Worldwide Finals was the definite climax of that experience: a crazed week filled with encounters, parties, excursions in so many unforgettable places with unforgettable people.
Jean-Benoit PauxImagine Cup 2007 and Imagine Cup 2008
Gold Medal – IT Challenge 2008
I’m currently working as a System Engineer at Avanade, the first integrator of Microsoft technologies. My role as a consultant, is to give clients the opportunity to leverage Microsoft products to their needs and integrate them into their existing architecture. Since the IT Challenge was created, my school has had at least one participant on the Worldwide Finals podium. I was encouraged to participate. The quizzes were the training and the competition really began with the beginning of Round 2. It’s a really interesting exercise to write a business proposal and to discover at least 30 Microsoft products. Trying to understand how to integrate them into a viable solution meeting the requested functionalities and needs - that was the challenge! Then at the first final in 2007 in Seoul, I missed it. I wasn’t prepared enough and I lost too many hours making things useless. I promised to come back because it was an unforgettable moment with friends, staff, competitors. And then the next year, voila, I participated again, and I wanted it to be perfect. My business case was complete and accurate. In the finals I didn’t stress out. I made things smoothly and carefully and made sure it worked. The Imagine Cup gave me the force to go further, to exceed my limits and to achieve a goal. I’ll remember the parties, the discussions with other students and judges, the places we visited, the brilliant projects we discovered. It was so worth it.
Benjamin Talmard
Imagine Cup 2007 and Imagine Cup 2008
Gold Medal - Web Development 2007
I have just joined Microsoft as a Technical Account Manager in Paris, France, working with key accounts in different sectors. As a team from Efrei, our engineering school in France, we decided to participate to Imagine Cup 2007 in order to have fun and to improve our knowledge in Web Development. After several steps, we qualified for the Worldwide Finals in Korea, and achieved both goals. It was very interesting to meet people from all over the world. People, fun and skills are definitely 3 key words I take from my Imagine Cup experience. After the finals, we had a break before the next competition, Imagine Cup 2008, in France. Unfortunately, we did not pass the French finals, but we reached second place. However, as a Parisian, I was able to attend several events during the Worldwide Finals in Paris. I was really ecstatic to feel again the awesome Imagine Cup atmosphere.
Vincent Bellet Imagine Cup 2006
Semi-finals in France - Software Design
I am currently a .Net consultant at Microsoft Consulting Services. Right after the Imagine Cup, it was time for me to find a job, and I was lucky enough to get many proposals. I finally joined Societe General Investment Banking in London as a Technical Lead on .NET / SQL Server based solutions. I got promoted about a year after that as a project manager in a tactical web development team, and I managed several projects there. After that, I decided to join Microsoft. Imagine Cup was a real ramp up to success for me, it helped distinguish me from other candidates at the end of my studies. It also provided me contact with Microsoft Technologies. Right now I live a life of innovation, passion and technology - that one can only experience at Microsoft. The Imagine Cup competition puts you in the spotlight media wise. I guarantee that Talent Acquisition teams take a long hard look at what you accomplish through the IC competition. From a personal perspective, the Imagine Cup was a major turn in the appetite I had for meeting new people, discovering new countries, cultures and technologies. I will always remember the awesome diversity of solutions from different countries that you can see at the Worldwide Finals. Just incredible!
RUSSIA:
IGNITION
Imagine Cup 2008
Enterprise Engineering Award - Software Design
Team Members:
Anatoly Nikitin, Roman Belov, and Daria Elkina
Anatoly, Roman and Daria are still working on their project, which has been implemented and tested in Southern district of Russia. They are awaiting their trip to Redmond later in 2009. Ignition was the most spectacular team in Imagine Cup 2008 in Russia, and they were without a doubt selected to represent Russia at the Worldwide Finals. Their project was, in fact, very scientific – they designed a system to predict wild fire behavior. Their presentation on-stage was like a theater performance. Thus their project was a perfect demonstration of an Imagine Cup idea: let students have fun, while working on the very serious problems. At the Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals, the team met another group of students from Bulgaria, who worked on a similar project of disaster discovery and elimination. It also happened that both teams were given an Engineering Excellence Award – entitling them to visit Redmond and work together with Microsoft engineers to further improve their project. The project of Russian team was heavily connected to high-performance computing, and they are looking forward to work on one of the largest worldwide clusters in Redmond in summer 2009.
INSPIRATION
Imagine Cup 2005
First place - Software Design
Team Members:
Stas Vonog, Nick Surin, Alexander Popov, and Ruslan Gilfanov
Stas Vonog and Nick Surin have opened their own startup company, Musigy and developed further their technology that they created for the Imagine Cup. In 2004, students from two different Moscow universities, Moscow State University and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology decided to come together to develop a joint project for the Imagine Cup. Two of them were guitar and piano players, while the other two were mostly interested in technology. They developed a project called OmniMusic, which allowed musicians from remote locations to play together using Internet2 connectivity, overcoming the severe limitations of sound delays introduced by all parts of sound stack in Windows and transmitting software. At the Worldwide Finals, they played “Imagine” by John Lennon on stage, causing the largest round of applause from the audience. They received 1st place in the Software Design category and an Innovation Accelerator award. After taking part in Innovation Accelerator, Stas and Nick decided to continue their product, and invested the award money into further personal development – they took part in Silicon Valley conference and were able to find financing for their project, which has been renamed Musigy. Later on, Musigy technology was used to hold half-an-hour distributed jazz concert “Jazz at the Speed of Light”, between US, Russia and Ukraine, which was organized as a part of large Jazz festival. Their technology was demonstrated on CeBIT 2006, and presented to Bill Gates when he visited Moscow in 2007. More information is available
here.
Competitors - Put your name here! Provide motivation to current and future Imagine Cup participants. All we need are videos, photos and short stories featuring you and your team. Tell us about the hard at work you did to solve the world’s toughest problems. Please also provide the following:
1. Team members full names and mentor name (if applicable)
2. Imagine Cup team name and the year(s) you participated in the Imagine Cup.
3. Country/Region
4. A short paragraph on your Imagine Cup experience to date (in English).