This is the first in a series of videos and email interviews with former competitors in the Imagine Cup here in the UK. A very common question we receive is "What happens to former winners and competitors?" and whether the Imagine Cup has had a positive effect on their lives since. I'm not going to focus just on the winners of the Software Design challenge from the UK but look at competitors generally to see where they are now and whether they had any positive memories from the competition and how it has helped them in their careers.

andygrieve First up, is Andy Grieves. Andy won the Imagine Cup in 2004 and went onto Brazil to compete against the rest of the world. Here are his own words on the Imagine Cup:

Mark: When did you enter the Imagine Cup?

Andy: I entered the Imagine Cup in 2004.

Mark: What was your idea?

Andy: Our idea was to build a smart, location-aware application that would assist students in their everyday life.  The concept came from Mat's second round entry and was initially called ULL(University Lesiure and Lifestyle Manager).  We built on this, adding more features and rebranding it into "the juice".  This was primarily so that we could use cheesy puns for marketing - "the juice - squeezing the most out of student life" and include features called love juice and love pips.  Features included:

- "Juice alerts" - invite friends to social events, including maps/directions and reviews

- "Juice pips" - loyalty points gained by attending such social events which could be used in promotions offered by restaurants/bars (e.g. beer and burger for £2 with 50 juice pips)

- "Love juice" - location-aware dating service to find good personality matches for other juice users nearby

- "Out of juice" - 1 click "take me drunk i'm home [sic]" to request a taxi to come and pick you up from your current location

Mark: Anything fun happen at the worldwide finals?

Andy: Plenty!  The competition itself was fun and getting through to the last round and presenting our ideas to a panel of rather important people was rewarding.  When we weren't up all night developing our application we enjoyed the occasional Caprioska or Capriahana (both plentiful in alcohol and thirst-quenching and refreshing to boot).  There was the odd practical joke here and there (some of which i believe were filmed).  Then of course there were the days after the competition actually finished where we got a chance to assume rather touristy personas.

Mark: What did you do after the IC? (job wise)

Andy: After winning the UK finals I was put in touch with a HR body at Rare, which is part of Microsoft Game Studios.  I actually did the interviews whilst working on our IC project at TVP and got a job offer the next day!  I worked in the Shared Technology Team, developing in a mostly managed-world and working on a number of interesting new projects. 

Mark: What is your role?

Andy: My current role is as a Credit Derivatives Developer at an investment bank in London.  I've only been here a week but that's the great thing about .NET - it's ubiquitous!  I've jumped from video games to investment banking and there is a large overlap in terms of technology being used.  .NET is the building blocks for many and varied applications.

Mark: Shipped any products? (Any examples of games you've contributed to)

Andy: Working in Shared Technology we were never working in the front line, being directly responsible for games going to market.  However the products I developed are used in a games engine which is currently being used to develop a couple of, as yet, unannounced titles by Rare.

Mark: How do you think the Imagine Cup helped kick start your career?

Andy: Above everything else it gave me exposure.  There was media interest and interviews to do which led to a number of approaches from some big companies and ultimately a job offer before I'd really had the chance to sit down and decide what I wanted to do for a career.  Also it was my first introduction to the world of .NET which has been the (somewhat solid) foundation of my career path.

Mark: Any advice for current competitors?

Andy: Just to have fun if nothing else!