14 DAY TRIAL // This year’s final stage of Microsoft’s worldwide student technology competition brought with it not only new innovators of tomorrow, but also a commitment from the Redmond company to help Imagine Cup projects actually get the chance to make an impact.
Imagine Cup 2011 was wrapped up on July 13, with Ireland’s Team Hermes winning this year’s Software Design competition.
Their projects, focused on using technology to better driver habits and reduce deaths due to traffic accidents involved Microsoft products such as Windows Phone 7, Bing Maps and Windows Azure, and won them $25,000.
“We have a problem in Ireland; that problem is deaths on our roads,” said Team Hermes member James McNamara. “Thanks to Microsoft and the Imagine Cup, we’ve been able to come together to solve this problem and save lives.”
Readers will be able to find a list with the Imagine Cup 2011 winners at the bottom of this article.
I’d like to send a special shout-out to team Endeavour_Design (Romania) – third place in Embedded Development, as well as to M.N.A. (Romania) first place in Digital Media
“The innovators, entrepreneurs and humanitarians who compete in the Imagine Cup have developed an inspiring spectrum of projects, raising the bar higher and higher each year,” added S. Somasegar, senior vice president, Developer Division, Microsoft.
“We are in awe of the students’ solutions for addressing social and real-world challenges, and want to help them take their projects to the next level with the financial, technical and business support they need to change the world.”
A newly announced initiative from Microsoft will be designed to provide the necessary funding to transform the innovation dreamed by Imagine Cup teams from a contest project to reality.
According to the Redmond company, once the new three-year, $3 million competitive grant program goes live, Imagine Cup teams will be able to get financial support, but also software, training, consulting etc. in order to build actual commercial products from their projects.
Software Design
• First Place: Team Hermes (Ireland) • Second Place: Team Note-Taker (United States) • Third Place: OaSys (Jordan)
Embedded Development
• First Place: NTHUCS (Taiwan) • Second Place: Harmonicare (China) • Third Place: Endeavor_Design (Romania)
Game Design – Mobile • First Place: Geekologic (France) • Second Place: Close World Mobile (France) • Third Place: Team Dragon (United States)
Game Design – Web • First Place: Cellardoor (Poland) • Second Place: Signum Fidei (Philippines) • Third Place: Quegee Team (Slovakia)
Game Design – Windows/Xbox
• First Place: Signum Games (Brazil) • Second Place: JubJub (Thailand) • Third Place: WickedTeam (Czech Republic)
Windows Phone 7
• First Place: HOMERUN (Korea) • Second Place: Zipi Zigi (Korea) • Third Place: The LifeLens Project (United States)
People’s Choice Award
• First Place: Rapture (Bangladesh)