Kodu Challenge

The Power of Youth. The Soul of a Planet.

Imagine Cup happily invites aspiring game developers, ages 9 to 18, to learn coding by developing a video game with Kodu, an easy-to-learn, game-creation toolkit and programming language available for free download on Windows-based PCs. We've drawn on the expertise of Mercy Corps and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop to launch this new challenge and we can't wait to see what young coders create!

The Kodu Challenge runs from March 19 through May 17, 2013, and invites students in two age brackets (9-12 and 13-18) to design games on the Kodu platform. For this challenge, students will explore the relationships between water and people through the medium of Kodu video games. Although the only limits for these students are their imaginations, the partnership with Mercy Corps offers the chance to learn and explore water-related issues, including disaster relief, clean-water engineering projects and much more through a video series launching soon right here on our site. While acquiring valuable skills such as critical thinking, storytelling and programming, students in both age brackets will compete for first-place prizes of US$3,000, second-place prizes of US$2,000, and third-place prizes of US$1,000.

With nearly one-half million downloads since its release and more than 16,000 student-made games currently available for download, Kodu has proven an effective way to teach programming to young people. There will be additional Kodu-focused Imagine Cup challenges by Microsoft launching in June and October so you, your friends, or your school will have more chances to dream, build, and win!