I attended the presentations delivered by the 6 Embedded, 3 Games Design and 6 Software Design finalists at the Imagine Cup Finals in Paris today (and by the way check out the event blog and the official site for more info).

On top of the high quality of the projects (some of which really impressed me) there are a couple of things that stroke me.

All the 6 software design finalists included multiple device access (web, mobile, rich client) and some sort of embedded software built on custom hardware. These guys really went the extra mile to deliver some innovative and effective solutions built on top of cloud services and leveraging elements of social networking.

This is definitely a sign of where the world of software is evolving and of how it is leaving the confinement of the simple PC to become more and more pervasive, integrated and connected. This also tells me that the tools to create these kind of solutions are now affordable and easy to access for everyone who wishes to use them which is an excellent thing.

The second thing was that for all the guys presenting, being in front of such a large audience (I do not know the official number but we were a lot!!!), presenting their own work, often not in their mother tongue and then being “gently” grilled by the judges will be an experience that will last forever in their memories and will be an invaluable asset for their careers moving forward.

I have heard some people criticising this kind of competition in the past, saying that they don’t provide academic value and take too much of the student’s time. Well, having now been exposed to the experience and having seen with my eyes what this is all about I could not disagree more. If we want to teach what the real world looks like, expose them to the pressure of tight deadlines, the emotion involved in presenting in front of large, demanding audiences…. competition like this one provide a unique opportunity to realise it.

And I am sure ANY employer will greatly value this when making their hiring decisions.

Now off for some chat with some of these guys… if you are interested in learning in real time who will be crowned winner… follow me on Twitter tomorrow.