Imagine Cup First Round Fun

Today we had the First Round presentations in the Imagine Cup World Finals. 72 teams, loads of judges and a whole bunch of presentations to watch and score.Above are some of the teams just before we gave them their competition briefing and sent them off to sell their solutions. Once all the teams had presented we we had to get the scores back in, announce the teams moving forwards to Round 2, summarize their session feedback from the judges and then send it back. All before midnight. And we did. Congratulations to the following 20 teams:

• tethoCloud Australia 
• Xight China
• Level Up Egypt
• Greenway Germany
• Symbiosis  Greece
• DocTek Systems  Ireland
• Coccolo Japan
• Dancing Pillow Jordan
• Etzoockee Kazakhstan
• Let IT Bee Korea
• MobileEye New Zealand
• Grawesome Oman
• wi-GO Portugal
• Technology Lanterns Qatar
• IQube Romania
• AlphaWaves  Singapore
• Osmosis Slovenia 
• uCHAMPsys Taiwan
• cipher256  Uganda
• Quadsquad Ukraine

These are the teams that are going forward to Round 2. They get to present tomorrow, all over again.  The standard this year has been the highest I’ve ever seen, as were the scores, with teams separated by wafer thin amounts. It was hard to draw the line between them, but at the end of of the day we have to do that.

This was the picture just as the results were announced. If you were one of the 52 teams that didn’t make it, please, please, please stay happy. You have a lot to be happy about, more than you know. Just the fact that you have taken part in the competition and reached a point where someone will pay to send you half way round the world to see you strut your stuff is pretty amazing. Sydney is fantastic, the food and drink is free, and you are now on the radar of a lot of very interesting people.

One day one of whom might wake up with a need for someone who is smart, tech savvy and knows how to deliver presentations and products. And your Imagine Cup participation could suddenly change your life in a very big way.

 
Every Saturday night they have a huge firework display here. Which looked very nice indeed.

Imagine Cup 2012 Opening Ceremony

Cutting the ribbon to start things off….

And then firing off a whole bunch of streamers....

Once the briefings were over it was time for the opening ceremony.

I suggested that someone might like to walk over there and press the sign, but nobody did.

The view outside.

Just time for a quick walk around the block, and then an early night. 

Imagine Cup Briefing Day

This was the view from our hotel room this morning. The Imagine cup World Finals are being held in the building on the left of the picture. And no, I didn’t add the rainbow on afterwards.

Today we are setting up the competition and briefing the judges.

This is the judging team for this year’s Software Development Challenge. A great crew of folks. We spent a big chunk of this afternoon making sure that everyone knows what to do, and that the way the judging works is right. I suppose you could call it a meeting, but it was a fun one, if such a thing is possible. Thanks for your help folks.

All the flags around the bay are Imagine Cup branded. Very impressive.

The competition rounds start tomorrow. Really looking forward to it. 

Imagine Cup Australia Flying

This is football on display at Singapore Airport during our stopover

Since I can’t actually tell the difference between yesterday and today, this might as well be the same blog post. Except for this bit of course.

Imagine Cup Australia Flying

This is football on display at Singapore Airport during our stopover

It turns out that Sydney Australia is a very long way from Hull. In fact, to travel further than this you’d probably need a larger planet.

Heading off to the Imagine Cup World Finals

Spent a few hours gadget packing and a also threw a few clothes into a suitcase. We are heading off the the Imagine Cup World Finals in Sydney, so no more 3D printing for a while…

Imagine Cup World Finalists Announced

The World Finalists for the Imagine Cup Software Development Challenge have just been announced. All 72 of them. You can find the list here. I’m really looking forward to seeing them at the Finals in Australia.

One thing I forgot to do a while back was to give a shout out to Team WykeWare who won the Hull University heat of the Imagine Cup and got to compete in the UK Finals. Kudos to Katherine Fielding, Samuel Armstrong, William R Dann and David Hart. Good work people, and I know you are enjoying the prizes that you got.

Singapore Imagine Cup Finals

These are the winners, congratulations to the four team members from NYP-School of IT who are about to get covered in celebration bunting…

I was lucky enough to be invited to help judge the 2012 Singapore Imagine Cup Final presentations today. Yesterday a series of sessions had taken the teams down from 16 to 4 and today we had to pick the winner from these. For the teams in the room it must have been especially nerve wracking because the finalists were announced just before they had to present and had a scant 10 minutes to prepare for their session. Not that it showed.

Every team delivered a very professional result which brought home to me just how much the standard has improved in the competition. All the presentations were what I would call “world standard”, in that they were the equal of ones I have seen at the World Final level.

However, there was a standout winner and so congratulations to Eustace Zheng Xiangwen, Nur Nadiah Binte Zailani, Koh Kai Wei and Mong Xunheng (hope I got your names right) who made up Team AlphaWaves. Their system, the Dementia Assistance and Recall Engine (DARE) provides support to sufferers of one of the nastiest things that can happen to a person. I wish them the best of luck in the world finals in Australia later this year.

If you want to find out more about the competition and get some tips about preparation for the next rounds I’ll be hosting a Live Meeting on Wednesday 18th of April at 16:30 GMT.  You can sign up here for the meeting.

After the finals I had a quick look around Singapore and then we headed off for a really posh meal. Thanks for inviting me folks, it has been great. My only regret is that I’m in town for such a short time.

I’ve not bought many souvenirs, but that’s because I’m definitely coming back some day…

Imagine Cup Preliminary Summary Due

Today is the last chance for submitting your Preliminary Summary document for your entries into the Imagine Cup Software Development challenge. You need to send in your document (at least 600 characters – so no Tweets) by the end of today.

Note that this is not something that will contribute to your judged score, it is more of a “sanity check” for the entry. For example if you said something like “We are thinking of creating a social networking site for everyone to use and we are going to call it "’Book of Faces’” then the Imagine Cup team might come back and politely suggest that something similar has been done before and you might like to change your approach slightly.

If you change the basis of your entry, perhaps targeting a different set of users or using a different technology in the light of your experience then this is absolutely fine, but if you completely change direction then you should send an update to the Imagine Cup team to let them know. As I write this (9:00 am GMT) you have around 15 hours to get your submission in. So get too it.

Imagine Cup Live Meetings

If you are thinking about entering the Imagine Cup (and you should be) then I’m hosting a couple of Live Meetings next week which will tell you all about the early stages:

Session 1 -  5:00 pm GMT  Tuesday 21st February

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/zaaz1com/meet/FB7G74

Session 2 – 7:00 am GMT Wednesday 22nd February

 https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/zaaz1com/meet/D4Z68P

These are the times and the links to the Live Meetings themselves. Both meetings have the same content, come to the one that best fits your schedule.

If you have any interest in the competition then please come along. There’s still plenty of time to form a team and get cracking.

Imagine Cup

We had a meeting today about the Imagine Cup. A whole bunch of our students seem very keen to take part. No idea why. Unless it is the chance to make a name for themselves, win some prizes, have fun making something useful, pick up useful skills, maybe even get to go to Australia and win a chunk of cash….

You should take part too. The Imagine Cup could change your life. I’ve seen it happen. Form a team and sign up here.

Imagine Cup

There are lots of things that you can do that will change your life. One of the best things you can do is enter the Imagine Cup. We will be putting Hull teams together soon. If you have an idea and team then get signed up here: http://www.imaginecup.com/

Imagine Cup Thoughts

Now that the dust has settled a bit I’ve had time to reflect on the Imagine Cup this year. Here are some random observations:

• It gets better every year : the teams, their ideas, their implementation and their presentation seems to improve with every world final. This year was the best ever. I get the impression that teams are really thinking about how to not just make their ideas work, but how to make them real so that the outside world can make use of them. This is great.
• Making stuff is much easier : quite a few teams had made hardware. The winners even used the .NET Micro Framework to power their in-car device. In the old days using hardware meant messy wooden boxes and dodgy looking devices. Not so now. With fabrication machines appearing at very low prices it is now possible for a team to make a case for their device which looks as good as any shop-bought item. There was some highly impressive, consumer ready, hardware being shown off.
• Teamwork is still vital : the teams that did best did it as a team. The ones that played off each other and made use of all the team members in presentation and development were the ones that did the best.
• The judges had a great time too – every judge that I spoke to really enjoyed seeing what had been made and talking to students. I said at one of the briefings there was only one group of people more determined than the students to come to the next Imagine Cup, and that is the judges. This is absolutely the case. And I’m including myself in that..

Imagine Cup 2011 Awards Ceremony

These are the top three for the Imagine Cup Software Development Challenge this year. We have OaSys (Jordan) in third, NoteTaker (USA) in second and Hermes (Ireland) first. Very warm congratulations to you all.

More winners take to the stage.

The awards ceremony was a great event, with appearances from the Mayor of New York, and Eva Longoria, to name a few. The students had a great time, which got even greater when they were told that along with the Kinect they will be taking home with them, they have also been awarded a brand new “Mango” release Windows Phone device as soon as they become available. Lucky people.

Imagine Cup 2011 Finals Judging

Imagine Cup Final Judges, from the left: Kulbir Arora -Technology Director Goldman Sachs, Edward G. Happ - Global CIO and Head of ISD; International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Sandra Regina Boccia -Editor PEGN Magazine, David Tisch  - Director TechStars NYC, Dr. Fiona Wood -Director McComb Research Foundation, me, David Connor - Managing Director, Europe; 3BL Media.

Well, that was fun. Six and a half hours of deliberation, including six team presentations and a lot of discussion. I thought when we started that we wouldn’t need all the discussion time. But we did. It was not so much that we couldn’t decide the results, but more that we all wanted to be certain that we had done right by the six finalists. Eventually we handed over the winners and then I staggered off to bed. For me the judging is now complete. 67 teams have been taken down to a top three.

I want to thank all the judges who helped us get where we are. This kind of competition is as good as the judging process. If that is broken the whole thing becomes pointless. I’ve been so proud of the way that the judges have done their jobs over the last few days. The Imagine Cup can be justly proud of them too.

Imagine Cup 2011 Culture and Party

Today was a cultural day. This is when the Imagine Cup delegates get to do their own thing, or take part in some activities specially set up for them. However, in the morning we had our own agenda, and set off to go up the Empire State Building. The good news is that if you go first thing you can pretty much walk straight in. It was rather nice to walk through all the areas that would normally be fully of queuing people. Once at the top I took quite a few pictures, which will doubtless surface on these pages over time.

Then we went over to Macys store and had a look round, before returning to the hotel to join a “walking tour” around Manhattan. When we arrived the advice from folks who had been here before was to just walk around the city. I completely agree. Each neighbourhood has its own character and it is very interesting to see each one change into another. You can walk a single block and find all the shop signs complete change from one language to another.

In the evening we joined the trip to Ellis Island for a barbeque.

On the way we went past a New York icon. and even managed to get onto the island and see here up close and personal.

There are all the teams, with a rather nice backdrop.

The skyline looks even nicer when the sun goes down a bit.

Once we’d had enough to eat and drink we had a quick look around the Ellis Island museum and then it was time to get back on the boat and head home. Just a fantastic evening, thanks Microsoft.

Imagine Cup Round 3 Finalists

This is me taking to the stage to announce the teams that are going forward to the finals on Tuesday. Fortunately there are no pictures of me nearly falling off the stage at the end.

Anyhoo, the six teams that have made it to the final round are:

• Care Everyone China
• OaSys Jordan
• OneBuzz New Zealand
• SIMPLEX Romania
• Team Hermes Ireland
• Team Note Taker United States

Awesome work folks. Very impressive stuff. Now these teams have got to take their presentations onto the big stage on Tuesday.

Imagine Cup Round 2 Judging

Not a bad place for breakfast.

Imagine that you spent a day doing something which was great fun. And then you got to spend another day doing the same thing, only better. Well, that’s how today is going. Yesterday we judged the Imagine Cup Round One teams, who were excellent. Today we get to do the same thing for Round 2, with the 18 teams that are left. I’ve done my marking and I’ve even had time to stitch together some pictures that I took at breakfast, which is nice. The other judges are still working away at their score sheets, and later today we will be announcing the six teams that will be going forward to the finals on Tuesday.

Imagine Cup 2011 Round 2 Teams

At least the camera seems to be working again now…

Well, that was fun. Six presentations, six teams of passionate and enthusiastic students. Six good ideas well implemented. Now we have to put all the scores together and find the 18 best ones. We also have to assemble 18 feedback reports. And all before the end of the day. And we just about made it.

These are the 18 teams who are moving forward to the next round:

• 2ndSight Slovenia
• Apptenders Croatia
• Care Everyone China
• Celebrio Software Czech Republic
• DashPoint Ukraine
• Infiniti India
• LevelUP Brazil
• Lifeware S.A.C. Chile
• OaSys Jordan
• OneBuzz New Zealand
• OriTeam Russia
• SIMPLEX Romania
• Team 25k Finland
• Team Cyber Knightz Malaysia
• Team Hermes Ireland
• Team Note-Taker United States
• White Light Morocco
• Zippers Slovakia

I was up on the stage reading out the names Lisa pulled from a hat. We do this to set the order for the presentation tomorrow.

I was very aware that as well as making 18 teams very happy I was also making 49 teams a bit sad. We say “you are all winners” a lot at the World Finals. Mainly because it is true. For those that didn’t make the cut I can tell you that the competition was very fierce, with the standard going up again. (as it seems to every year). And you have all gained more from this competition than you know. It really will change your life. When you go for a job, make sure that you tell them about the time you had in New York, and what you built. It will be the making of you. Remember that your Imagine Cup entry is not the only great thing you will do. It is just one of the first.

And a final tip if you didn’t quite make it. Go to the eating area on the 8th floor of the hotel. Grab something nice to eat and drink and find a window seat looking out onto the lights of Times Square. Then say to yourself. “I’m in New York on an all expenses paid trip. Last night I saw Steve Balmer turn up and give a speech just to us. Tomorrow we have a BBQ at Ellis Island. I’ve got nothing to do but play with cool tech, hang out with folks like me and explore New York”. And then tell me again how unfortunate you are….

Imagine Cup 2011 Judging Starts

Turns out I’m wearing Mr. Burns socks today. I hope I don’t start behaving like him during the judging.

Today is the judging for the round one presentations. The judges are all ready and assigned rooms, but first we have to brief the students on how it is all going to work. Which apparently involved me going up on the stage and telling some bad jokes. I think most aspects of my life involve me doing this at some point.

This is the left hand side of the audience. When I tried to take a picture of the other part of the room (which is enormous by the way) for some reason my camera let me down. Sorry about that, and you were definitely the better looking half of the room too….

Each judge has been assigned up to six teams to score and provide feedback to. The presentation sessions each last 20 minutes, with 15 minutes for questions afterwards. We give out the top 18, who are going to progress to the next round, at 10:00 tonight. I hope the camera is working again by then….