ImagineCup

Imagine Cup Welcomes Matt Smith as our Worldwide Finals Host

John Scott Tynes — Wed, 08 May 2013 18:05:00 GMT

For the last few weeks, thousands of students in dozens of countries all over the planet have been competing in the Imagine Cup Local Finals. They've formed teams, dreamed up big ideas, and then set to work making amazing software. This July, we're going to send several hundred of them, the best of the best, to St. Petersburg, Russia, for the Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals. With more than one million dollars in prizes at stake, the pressure will be on and I know these students are going to deliver.

Come the Imagine Cup awards ceremony on July 11, they won't be alone up there on stage: Matt Smith will have their back.

Who better? Smith's intelligent and witty portrayal of the BBC's iconic time traveler has won fans young and old all over the world. The Doctor's mastery of technology is only matched by his creativity, his compassion, and his sense of wonder at all the amazing things people can accomplish when they are inspired by hope instead of being ruled by fear.

I certainly learned from the Doctor's example. As a kid in Memphis, Tennessee, in the early 1980s I loved two things: programming on my computer and watching the Doctor. I even built my own K-9 out of a cardboard box, duct tape, and a calculator! And from all of this I grew up to make my own career as a creative technologist who gets to spend his days helping the next generation find their path.

Each year at Imagine Cup we dedicate ourselves to showing the world how young people can rise from anywhere and shine a brilliant light on our future. I'm grateful that this year Matt Smith will be there with us to infuse that light with his own charm and intellect. And you can watch live online as Matt hosts our award ceremony on July 11, right here at ImagineCup.com. I can't wait!

A few weeks ago I spent an afternoon in the studio with Matt as we shot the video you see below. He's just what you hope for: enthusiastic, warm, collaborative, and deeply optimistic about what young people can accomplish. And like the rest of us, he's eager to find out: What's next?

John Scott Tynes
Imagine Cup Competition Manager
Microsoft Academic Programs

Introducing the DevExpress Boost!

John Scott Tynes — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:35:00 GMT

When I was a kid, my first computer was a Radio Shack Color Computer with 16kb of RAM. This was in the early 1980s when you could increase the clock speed of your computer just by typing POKE 65495,0 and you could tell because the cursor flashed faster. I learned to code on that computer, in the mighty BASIC programming language, and when we wanted to improve our development environment it meant buying a hacked version of the built-in OS from a classified ad in a magazine, customizing it the way you wanted, and then burning it onto an EPROM and swapping it out for the old chip on the motherboard.

You kids and your modern development environments have it easy! (Also, get off my lawn!)

The folks at DevExpress understand all this. They're very serious devs and they ship very serious tools. Their Universal Subscription is a comprehensive software development toolset for .NET developers. It includes a complete range of controls and libraries for all major Microsoft platforms, including WinForms, ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight, and Windows 8. The Universal Subscription ships with DXTREME Mobile, an easy-to-use JavaScript framework for building multi-device applications for smartphones and tablets. And that's only the tip of the iceberg . . .The subscription also includes CodeRush, the eXpressApp Framework (XAF), business intelligence Dashboard, and priority support from the devs who know best.

Why am I telling you all this? Because today we're pleased to announce that our Worldwide Finalist teams headed to St. Petersburg, Russia, this July have another great chance to win thanks to the new DevExpress Boost! Every first-place winning team in every competition and challenge will receive a Universal Subscription for every member of the team -- that's a $2,199 value. Our winning teams will head back home with their trophies held high and a sackful of great tools to keep pushing their software dreams higher and higher.

For more information check out the official rules and if you're curious to see what DevExpress can do for you, you can try the Universal Subscription free for thirty days.

John Scott Tynes
Imagine Cup Competition Manager
Microsoft Academic Programs

Imagine Cup TV Episode Nine!

John Scott Tynes — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:15:00 GMT

John has been eating bad airplane food and checking out amazing robots at the Imagine Cup Russia Local Final. The Microsoft Student Partners Social Media Team has been blogging like crazy to cover all the Imagine Cup Local Finals action worldwide. John & Golnaz will be reporting for ICTV from the Worldwide Finals in St. Petersburg including a live stream you can check out. And from KFC Russia . . . INTERACTIVE FLOOR!

John Scott Tynes
Imagine Cup Competition Manager
Microsoft Academic Programs

Imagine Cup Kodu Challenge Update!

John Scott Tynes — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:32:00 GMT

Hi folks,

Five weeks ago we launched Imagine Cup's first contest for kids: the Kodu Challenge. Now kids all over the planet are creating their own videogames using Microsoft Research's Kodu Game Lab, which is free for download wherever you live and which has more than 16,000 kid-made videogames available for you to play whenever you want.

I have some great news about Kodu to share today.

Kodu Game Lab at the White House Science Fair

Gustavo Zacarias and his sister at the White House Science Fair
Photo: Christa Avampato, Joan Ganz Cooney Center

First off, this past week at the White House, President Obama hosted the annual White House Science Fair. One of our partners in the Kodu Challenge is the Joan Ganz Cooney Center for Digital Media at Sesame Workshop and they shared the following about one of the student attendees at that prestigious event:

Gustavo Zacarias, a middle school student from San Antonio, Texas, built The Dark Labyrinth on Kodu Game Lab and was invited to exhibit his video game at the fair. The Dark Labyrinth is a 3-D maze that players navigate by solving math challenges. Gustavo began playing video games at age 4 and plans to build a career as a video game designer.

“I never thought I would be exhibiting my game at the White House,” said Gustavo. “I worked very hard during the making of the game and was very happy about winning a national competition, so I’m very excited and thankful for the opportunity to be part of this great event.”

Gustavo didn't just make a great Kodu game and meet the President. He was also one of the winners of the Cooney Center's National STEM Video Game Challenge, an annual contest open to students in the United States. If you're a U.S. student in grades five through twelve, you still have until May 1st to submit your Kodu Game Lab project to this year's contest!

And if you do, guess what: you can also submit your project to the global Imagine Cup Kodu Challenge! Students worldwide are invited to submit their projects to our contest, which ends May 17.

New Kodu for Kids Book

This great new book by James F. Kelly is your complete guide to creating videogames with Kodu Game Lab. Written with help from the Kodu team at Microsoft, this book will help you learn to build complete games from start to finish. You can order it now in print or ebook formats. If you've been on the fence about diving into Kodu Game Lab, this book is just what you need to get started!

Here's some examples of the book's topics:

Learn how games really work; Master Kodu's easy tools, controls, and programming; Imagine your quest and plan your game; Script a great story; Create your characters and make them move and talk; Invent and build new worlds; Design weapons, targets, and objects; Build enemies and make them fight; Add amazing sound, music, and special effects; Set up multiple players, levels, and points; Discover expert tips and tricks for better games; Make everything work together; and Share your games with players all over the world.

Still Time To Submit Your Game!

One last reminder: you need to submit your Kodu Game Lab project to the National STEM Video Game Challenge (for U.S students) by May 1st, and to the Imagine Cup Kodu Challenge by May 17. We can't wait to see your amazing games!

John Scott Tynes
Imagine Cup Competition Manager
Microsoft Academic Programs

More Technology For Women, By Women

John Scott Tynes — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 22:27:00 GMT

When teams of students solve problems with technology, those solutions come directly from their unique experiences. Young, inventive thinking moves faster and more efficiently through technology, and for years, the Imagine Cup has given an increasingly globally connected youth the opportunity to improve the world with its best ideas. Developments like water treatment, cleaner energy and political activism take on a new light when driven by fresh takes on regional and cultural issues.

The Cup's years of student technology competitions have amplified voices that might have otherwise gone unheard, and increasingly, that voice has been female. Women's participation in the Imagine Cup grew to 20% of participants in 2012, and Microsoft, alongside UN Women, are keen on seeing that percentage rise. Together we are putting a call out to Imagine Cup contestants to level the gender playing field across the world. Perhaps as importantly, the initiative is anchored by a simple idea: more technology for women, driven by their unique experiences and needs, will result in more technology by women.

The Women's Empowerment Award, debuting at this year's Imagine Cup, is open to all World Finals projects, whether developed by men or women, so long as they meet a specific criteria: that they address critical women's issues. UN Women, Microsoft, and a panel of esteemed experts will evaluate all submissions before awarding a first prize of $12,000 and a second prize of $8,000.

The range of eligible projects for the award may seem quite vast, but so is gender equality as a cross-cutting, worldwide issue. As the leading UN organization dedicated to gender equality and women’s empowerment, UN Women globally supports efforts to end violence against women and girls, ensure their central involvement in peace building, advance women’s political participation and leadership, and increase their economic empowerment. “While women constitute over half of humanity, they are far from enjoying equal rights, equal opportunities and equal participation and leadership with men,” said former UN Women Under-Secretary General and Executive Director Michelle Bachelet in Denmark this February. “To achieve success in a new global development agenda, we need a unifying development goal on gender equality as a cross-cutting priority.”

That “unifying” goal and rallying cry for action is echoed in UN Women's inspiring theme song, “One Woman,” produced in partnership with Microsoft.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) —particularly in the hands of young thinkers and student teams—are poised to make a huge and rapid impact to fulfill those goals. Efficient, cost-effective innovations will put more tools in the hands of women who need them the most. Data-driven solutions can generate evidence and foster feedback, crucial to both improve the tools given to women and advocate for their usefulness And those innovations could also inspire rapid change in the conversations the world has about some of the world's poorest, most invisible victims of violence and human rights atrocities.

In addressing widespread violence against women, quicker access to legal, social, medical and financial services can make all of the difference. Consider the extreme case of acid throwing, a practice that largely affects women and is still all-too-common, including countries that have laws against such crimes. The Acid Survivors Trust International, with support from the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, works tirelessly to support victims, seek justice and implement measures to prevent more tragic crimes.

On the surface, any technology that can address the basic care of something as debilitating as an acid attack—reducing treatment times by even minutes—would be beneficial, but the possibilities do not end there. Imagine the impact of an Imagine Cup project that increased mobilization against the heinous practice, connected survivors in need of support, or built real-time maps of instances of violence, complete with links to services. Those are only a few examples of how low-cost technology could be used on behalf of female victims, whether distributed by mobile phone or other mechanisms.

The needs and possibilities only grow when addressing the complex layers that accompany violent and sexual assaults against women. How can technology-driven solutions also maximize privacy—so that victims can mask their distress signals and hide sensitive SMS messages or applications? Or seek information or file reports without being discovered? Those needs—and more—are, as of yet, under-served by modern technology, and they're only the first steps to help ensure victims have enough resources to combat perpetrated violence. These capabilities would prove just as useful in conflict zones, where civilians suffer as many as 90% of all casualties—and largely women and children. Refugees in need of things like new shelter, rape kits and protection from armed militias operate at a disadvantage of fear—which makes simple, low-cost, information-loaded solutions all the more desirable around the world.

Outside of conflict zones, the road to greater female empowerment across the globe has its own unique challenges. This can also include countries whose laws that directly affect women have lagged in either implementation or advocacy. In the spring of 2012, for instance, the Moroccan government granted equal land ownership rights to men and women—a ruling that has the potential to achieve greater success when more women are informed and equipped with the ability to act on the ruling.

The time is right for students to develop information-sharing technology, tailored specifically to empower women and girls.. Student teams from around the world know the specific challenges faced by women in their countries—limits in everything from land ownership to legislative eligibility. These students are poised to deliver technologies that connect advocates at a grassroots level or empower entrepreneurs to assert themselves in local and global marketplaces. It is their time to fill these gaps in access, for women—let alone the other inequalities, still untold, that their Imagine Cup solutions could publicize and solve.

This year's Women's Empowerment Award, to be awarded on July 11^th in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals, furthers the mission of the UN Women and Microsoft partnership to use technologies to help empower women around the world. Solutions that combat violence, level the political playing field and improve women's health won't just better the lives of women and society as a whole; they will also inspire a new generation of women who understand the value of Science and Technology and know how to use these areas of practice to become entrepreneurs, researchers, leaders, and more—to continue UN Women's cause of gender equality.

Hugh Samuels
Imagine Cup Correspondent

Are you ready for the April 15 Submission Deadline?

bapepper2 — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:35:00 GMT

Hello amazing online Imagine Cup competitors, this is a friendly reminder that the deadline for submitting your entry materials is Monday, April 15 at 23:59 GMT. (Hint: use this handy time zone converter http://bit.ly/GE9EhQ.)

Here’s a few more tips:

Try not to upload at the last minute. There are going to be thousands of
students uploading at the same time and our servers will be hard at work.

Uploading may take a little while so make sure you plan for it. If you
have tried uploading multiple times and it just will not work, take a
screenshot and send us an email at imagine@microsoft.com

Make sure that your entry documents are exactly what are requested,
check the rules for your competition and double check that your entry documents
have the right formats, length and size.

Best of luck to you!

Imagine Cup TV Episode Eight!

John Scott Tynes — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

April 15 is the big deadline to submit projects to Imagine Cup. Are you ready? John and Golnaz realize they can finally program thanks to Kodu Game Lab and the new Imagine Cup Kodu Challenge. There's a new award that Worldwide Finalists can compete for thanks to Russia's Mail.Ru Group. And John is leaving for Moscow but he forgot to invite Golnaz! RUH ROH . . .

For previous episodes, visit our archive on Channel 9.

John Scott Tynes
Imagine Cup Competition Manager
Microsoft Academic Programs

Introducing the Mail.Ru Connected Planet Award

John Scott Tynes — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 06:45:00 GMT

This July's Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals in St. Petersburg, Russia, is shaping up to be our best event yet. I'm particularly pleased to introduce a new award we'll present to some of our very best Worldwide Finalist teams: the Mail.Ru Group Connected Planet Award.

Mail.Ru Group is a leading Internet company in the high-growth Russian-speaking Internet markets. They operate two of the three largest Russian-language online social networking sites (Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir (or "My World")), the two largest Instant Messaging networks in Russia (Mail.Ru Agent and ICQ), Russia's leading email service and Russia's largest Internet portal Mail.ru, and Russia's largest online games platform. But besides just being a very successful company, Mail.Ru Group is also dedicated to investing in the Russian technology industry in general and particularly for students and startups.

They've created several projects to spur growth and knowledge in the Russian technology industry such as the Russian Code Cup, TechForum, and their mainstream project Technopark. They also support key industry events such as this year's Imagine Cup. The leadership at Mail.Ru Group believes these events are important for the industry and for the young people who are among its greatest innovators and its future. Through programs like these, Russian students get the opportunity to interact with industry experts and win grants for their projects' development.

For the Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals, we collaborated with Mail.Ru Group to create the Mail.Ru Group Connected Planet Award. For this award, any Worldwide Finalist team heading to our event in Russia can apply if their project does something interesting or fun with internet communications and entertainment. We can't wait to see what great projects turn up in Russia and three teams are going to win: First place gets $10,000; second place gets $5,000; and third place gets $3,000.

I'd like to thank our friends at Mail.Ru Group for this generous and exciting award. And once our Worldwide Finalist teams are announced on May 15, 2013, we'll get our first look at the amazing ways students are exploring our connected planet.

John Scott Tynes
Imagine Cup Competition Manager
Microsoft Academic Programs

Come Play Our Final Brain Games!

John Scott Tynes — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Hey folks,

Welcome back to our global trivia quiz! This is our last month and our theme is Games. We have terrific topics this time on children's games, adventure games, ancient games, alternate-reality games, and more! Our quiz master, Mike Selinker, and his team have cooked up thirty fun new questions for you that I think you're going to love . . . or hate! :) As always, you are welcome to use a search engine for the answers. That doesn't mean they're easy . . .

Our Games trivia quiz just went live and you can take it right now:

Log in to your account at ImagineCup.com.
Visit your Dashboard and find Brain Games.
Click the Take a Quiz link.
Get started!

This Games quiz ends April 12. The winner this month will receive one thousand dollars (U.S.)

Everyone who enters this month will get a ticket to our grand prize sweepstakes of a free trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, this July to attend the Imagine Cup World Finals.

As I mentioned earlier, this is our last month. This will be your last chance to win the trip to Russia! Even if you've entered before, you get another chance to win by playing this month's quiz.

Have fun, good luck, and I can’t wait to see how you all do with our latest quiz!

John Scott Tynes
Imagine Cup Competition Manager
Microsoft Academic Programs

p.s. We are still working to notify our March winner. Once we've privately contacted and verified the winner we'll share that news here on our site.

Welcome to the Imagine Cup Kodu Challenge!

John Scott Tynes — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:30:00 GMT

Today, we are announcing the new Imagine Cup Kodu Challenge for students worldwide ages nine to 18. This new contest uses Microsoft Research’s Kodu Game Lab, a Windows PC software package that enables even young kids to create their own video games. Available for free and translated into a dozen languages, Kodu includes a complete kid-friendly programming language and tools to sculpt landscapes; decorate them with trees, buildings, lakes and other objects; and populate them with interactive characters, gameplay, scoring systems and more. Kids can program real game logic using nothing more than an Xbox game controller (or a mouse and keyboard). To date, kids around the world have created more than 16,000 video games with Kodu, which are available for free download from KoduGameLab.com.

We know kids love video games. With Kodu Game Lab, they can make them, learning and mastering diverse skills in the process. When kids realize that they too can transition from being passive consumers of content to vigorously engaged creators, they will understand that their futures are unbounded and that embracing risk and learning from failure are how good minds become great.

For this contest we have two age brackets: 9-12 and 13-18. Within each age bracket we are awarding 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prizes of $3,000, $2,000, and $1,000. You can submit your project whenever you're ready up until our deadline of May 17.

We also have a theme: Water & People. Water is our world's most precious resource and it can both give life and take it away. To explore this theme we've partnered with Mercy Corps, a fantastic organization based in Portland, Oregon, that works with people in crisis zones all over the world. With their help we will be bringing you some great new videos exploring real Mercy Corps projects involving the role of water around the world and giving you some jumping-off points to create games inspired by their work. Stay tuned for these to start turning up in April!

And just to get you going, we've collaborated with the Kodu team in Microsoft Studios to bring you a brand new version of Kodu Game Lab! You'll find new features and new characters created specifically for this contest, including Octo, water-current generators, and more. We've even added Windows 8 touchscreen support! As always, Kodu Game Lab is a free download for your Windows PC. It's been a real pleasure to work with Scott Fintel on the Kodu team to bring this new version of Kodu to the world.

Finally, I'd like to thank our friends at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a foundation studying the ways kids use digital media. Based within Sesame Workshop, the team at the Cooney Center helped us create the theme for this contest and are strong supporters of games for learning.

If you know a student ages 9-18, please send them our way. They may not yet know what they're capable of creating, but they're about to find out!

John Scott Tynes
Imagine Cup Competition Manager
Microsoft Academic Programs