I am sitting now in the staff room at the Imagine Cup finals venue and thinking about the last few days. Most of the people left already and this is a good time to try to write down what I feel the Imagine Cup is all about.

As I mentioned in my previous post  this has been a great experience for me but much more so for the contestants.

All of the students I spoke to had two common comments:

1. I loved the experience

2. I will try again next year

And these I think are the most important achievements we all (Microsoft, participants, sponsors, teachers, institutions, etc, etc, etc) could reach. While winning is important (this is a competition after all), the journey matters and what is learned during the journey is key. Even more important is that the journey did not end here yesterday, but will continue for all of those who want to keep going and the experience gained in these few months will help them greatly.

When I hear someone saying “you are all winners” right before announcing the “real” winners in a competition I am always skeptical but in this case… I really think it was appropriate. All the participants really won something much more important than a cup or a check.

If you want to learn more about some of the experiences of some teams and some judges, I recommend you go and check these blogs:

Rog42 has lots of videos and comments especially about the winners of the Software Design competition: team Soak from Australia

Rob Miles published a great journal of his experience of judging and… going around Paris

If you want to see what it is like to present your project in front of the judges, look at the UK Teams presentation of their project and take a look at their blogs (Ben’s and Dominic’s) and visit the project website.

Next year the World Wide finals will be in Egypt… if you are a student and want to join in and try to get there or want to help your students set up a team, implement their great ideas and participate… take a look at the Imagine Cup website and get onboard!!! We’ll try helping you in any way we can!