UK Academic Team Blog : Student

Imagine Cup Registrations

ukacademia — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:44:17 GMT

Hello Everyone,

Interest for the Imagine Cup has been strong and we can confirm the various categories are now open for competition. From experience we know that the next couple of months will be key in getting great UK representation in the Imagine Cup.

Here are just a few of the reasons for encouraging your students to compete:

- PR: The Imagine Cup attracts the attention of both regional and national newspapers, together with technology and education press and news websites such as the BBC. Having students from your university compete in the Imagine Cup is great for raising the profile of your university in two important ways. Firstly it demonstrates the quality of your graduates to IT employers and makes them more attractive as employees (e.g. Dominic Green, UK winner of the 2008 competition) and secondly, it attracts new students to your university.

- Skills Development: Fundamentally the Imagine Cup is about helping students get real world experience with Microsoft technology. The skills learned during the various competitions compliment their studies and are invaluable when students apply for jobs with IT companies.

- Students Inspiration: With every technology interest area catered for, the competition is a great way to channel students’ passion for technology out of class.

We want as many UK institutions and students to get involved with the Imagine Cup as possible, and to help you participate we provide:

- Giveaways for students: Every week we give away web cams and Starbucks vouchers. We also hold a monthly draw for a Dell laptop, providing everything a student needs to see them through their studies and the Imagine Cup competition.

- Donation of an Xbox 360 gaming lab kit for your university: The university with the most registrations will receive 4 Xbox 360s, 8 wired controllers and an assortment of the latest Xbox 360 titles. You are free to use them for XNA development or as a social/recreation area for students.

If you would like to receive regular updates on the registration numbers from your university then please let me know and I will happily send them to you. You can contact me by telephone (0118 909 3409) or if you prefer by email (mailto:ukacinfo@microsoft.com).

And just to give you an idea of how we are doing so far, here are the top fifteen universities with the highest number of registrations:

University	Registrations
Brighton	89
Birmingham City	38
Cumbria	38
Bradford	37
Reading	35
Robert Gordon	35
Derby	31
Nottingham	24
De Montfort	23
Keele	23
Cambridge	20
Hull	20
Imperial College	20
Brunel	18
RHUL	20

If you would like to know more, them please email or telephone me. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.

Good luck,

Allison

Student Technology Day - Future User Experience Technologies

ukacademia — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:02:22 GMT

Hello All,

Filmed at the Royal Festival on 1st October, please find below the session by Paolo Barone on Microsoft Surface:

If for any reason you cannot view this clip, please do let me know.

Best wishes,

Allison

Student Technology Day videos

ukacademia — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:23:45 GMT

Hello All,

For those of you who made it along to the Royal Festival Hall and, especially for those of you who had other commitments, please find below Steve Ballmer’s Keynote Speech:

If you have any difficulty in viewing the clip, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

With best wishes,

Allison

UK High Performance Computing Award

ukacademia — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:11:22 GMT

Hello Everyone,

The Windows Server HPC team have created a special award for UK Software Design competitors who use the Windows HPC Server in their Software Design solution of the Imagine Cup.

Microsoft want to stimulate the thinking of UK students about how HPC can change the world. We want students to think big, and to use the world’s fastest systems to solve the world’s biggest problems. That’s what the HPC prize in the Imagine cup’s about.

You know how mutli-core is about writing a program that uses more than one cpu? Well HPC (High Performance Computing) is the next step up: it’s about programming for hundreds or thousands of CPUs. This is for all the stuff that needs more compute than you can get from a single server. Think about online gaming, when you have hundreds of people simultaneously modifying a visual database – that needs more power than you can get one a single CPU. Think about calculating the temperature over 20,000 land sites in the UK and then projecting that forward into the future, one minute at a time, for 500 years. This all needs heavy duty computing – and that’s HPC. It’s the A380 of the computing world.

To win the HPC prize you don’t need to have a working system – but tell us how your design would scale-out from one CPU to a thousand. And explain how all that power would help. The award will be given to the Software Design teams who demonstrate technical competency with HPC, have a real world need for high performance computing and present the commercial viability of their implementation.

HPC is used in lots of places – last year the two winners used HPC for genetic engineering and motorway design. People in the UK use HPC for everything from theology to thermodynamics, archaeology to aerodynamics, gaming to genetics. How could you use it?

If you’ve got questions please contact your local HPC or SuperComputing Centre. Or email Michael...

Good luck and hope to see you at the finals.

Best,

Allison

ITA Student Pass

ukacademia — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:00:27 GMT

Hello,

I’d like to tell you a little about the ITA Student Pass which gives students access to a large number of e-learning courses free of charge. The e-learning materials will provide your students with access to training on real-world technology and industry-recognised certification.

You might even envisage an opportunity to incorporate some of the e-learning into the curriculum for new courses or simply to replace existing materials.

If you would like your students to have access to Microsoft e-learning materials I can supply, upon request, a series of unique codes for you to distribute to them.

To see a demonstration of what e-learning has to offer please click demo.

For the codes themselves, please email i-allmc@micrsoft.com with a subject header of ITA Student Pass.

With Best wishes,

Allison

Microsoft Certification for Windows Embedded CE 6.0

ukacademia — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:28:20 GMT

Hello All,

I know that many of you are considering incorporating the Microsoft Certification Program into your curricula so that graduating students supplement their degrees with an industry recognised certification.

With this in mind I thought you might like to know about the the free Preparation Kit for the Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Exam 70-571 together with the 50% off voucher which you can redeem against the examination until 5th January 2009.

If you’d like to learn more, please click here.

And good luck!

Best,

Allison

News from the Faculty Summit

ukacademia — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:03:08 GMT

Lee Dirks, the Director for Education and Scholarly Research, announced five new ‘lifecycle’ tools for academics and researchers. The tools are as follows:

Research Information Centre
Creative Commons (an add-in to Microsoft Office)
Article Authoring (an add-in to Microsoft Word)
E-Journal Hosting Service
Research Output Repository Platform

To hear more about these tools from Lee, please visit Channel 8.

If you have any questions, do contact me and I’ll see if I can get them answered for you.

Best,

Allison

Pixel Poetry

ukacademia — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:14:17 GMT

Hi,

It was our very great pleasure to sponsor and support the Microsoft Photography Competition at the Department of Engineering 2008, at the University of Cambridge.

Blue Spikes, by Sonja Findeisen-Tandel

If proof were needed, these photographs exemplify the strong connection between art and science and that engineering particularly, has an inner beauty. The winning photograph, Blue Spikes, by Sonja Findeisen-Tandel, together with other stunning entries can be viewed at Microsoft Photography Competition at the Department of Engineering.

Which puts me in mind on Imagine Cup 2009 and the category for best photo story. It isn’t too soon to get your students involved and thinking about the competition. You never know, the lucky winner could be from your university and joining us in Cairo for the world finals. The next set of photographs could be of the pyramids and feluccas on Nile.

For an overview of the photo story competition please visit Photo Story.

All the best,

Allison

DreamSpark is here!

ukacademia — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:46:42 GMT

What's this? Free developer software for every student in the UK?

Ed Dunhill has all the details on his blog.

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Free ASP.NET hosting for UK Students from WebFusion

ukacademia — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:51:00 GMT

Many of you will have met or be about to meet Ed Dunhill as he tours the country with Ben Coley delivering the Inspiration Tour. When not on the road, Ed has been working on a great deal for students - Free ASP.NET hosting for all UK Students provided by WebFusion. To get this the students need a unique code and an academic email address (one that ends in .ac.uk). I have a pile of codes on my desk and am happy to send them out but the more effective distribution method is to point your students to Ed's blog post. Here they can:

read all about the deal,
request their code
and activate their code.

Please let all students know about this; it really is free, there really are no strings attached.

Claire

Technorati Tags: ASP.NET, Students

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Films for Learning

ukacademia — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:53:52 GMT

One of the exciting new projects being demonstrated at the BETT show this year is the Films for Learning Project. I know that many of you work with your feeder schools to establish links, provide extra curricular activities and to foster enthusiasm for Computer Science and Engineering subjects and I think this resource could help you. I see potential for you to help your feeder schools make videos that other schools can benefit from, either in your area or across the country. I see students demonstrating their programming, electronics, robotics projects to their peers. What do you think?

Claire

The details of the project are:

Films for Learning (FFL) is a project that has been inspiring schools for two years now to create their own video resources and share them with others online as part of core curriculum. FFL is organised out of Thomas Hardye School in Dorset with the first year of funding from NESTA.

· Audience for FFL is youth 6-18 years of age and teaching professionals.

· All submitted videos are moderated by UK teaching professionals before publication to ensure the site content is safe and appropriate for education use.

· Microsoft is a sponsor of FFL and helped to re-launch www.filmsforlearning.org. This collaborative site and online community will serve as an educational resource that inspires and helps teachers and students to make their own video productions.

· Approximately 50 schools in the UK take part today (note that most school/classrooms are already undertaking video projects but haven’t had a place to interact around them more broadly.

· School participation costs – a DV video camera, a PC running Windows XP or Windows Vista for access to Windows MovieMaker, Internet connectivity to publish the video to filmsforlearning.org

· The Films for Learning community members provide student and teacher activity/training days, using a travelling film lab with equipment funded by Microsoft, to help schools start media enhanced, personal learning activities.

The introductory FFL video (provided as a WMV) is available here – please watch if you wanted to see and hear more about FFL by the teachers and pupils doing FFL today! http://community.filmsforlearning.org.ultimahosts.eu/video/FfL-Film-2008.wmv

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The simplest New Year's Resolution to achieve

ukacademia — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:26:50 GMT

Happy New Year to all!

While many a student is still sleeping off the effects of their festivities we are aware that a dedicated few are polishing up their ideas for their entry into the Software Design Challenge of the Imagine Cup. A minority are sleeping smugly because they have already submitted theirs. The extended deadline is January 9th - one week away - so we want to encourage all who have an idea to submit it.

Unlike previous years, we do not require working code at this stage so the idea is all that is required. A sample entry shows you what is involved and the rules and other info on the Imagine Cup Website but if there is anything else that you need to know then please get in touch. WIth competitions, I know from personal experience that taking part can bring huge rewards; past competitors in this competition who now have top jobs, memories and career-building experiences will agree.

Make it your New Year's resolution to encourage a team (or ten) to enter and by next week you can relax and know that you have started the year with success.

Claire

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Imagine Cup - Software design deadline extension, new mentor service and extra prize

ukacademia — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:57:00 GMT

Students competing in the Software Design category of the Imagine Cup will be delighted to learn that the deadline has been pushed back to January 9th. This gives everyone chance to work on their submissions over the Christmas holidays.

We realise that it is in the last stages that students need the most assistance and so to take the pressure of you, their lecturers, we have a team of impartial techies on standby ready to provide a free mentoring service. Please have your students get in touch so that we can link them up.

In addition we have added an extra bonus prize for the 15 teams that make it through to the next stage: free professional training from innerworkings on a .NET developer interface that integrates directly with Visual Studio.

Claire

Inspiration Tour Update

ukacademia — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 18:12:52 GMT

With 17 dates behind them and another 37 yet to come, Ed and Ben are having a great impact on the students that they present to as part of the Inspiration Tour. We love to get feedback, both good and bad but our favourite so far is:

The talk you gave today was absolutely awesome, as were the demos. Loved every minute of it from the front row. You even had me crying when you were talking about the opportunities - everything I dreamed about. Thanks to both of you.

All dates are now booked but if your university has missed out then please get in touch and we will see if we can fit you into an additional slot.

Claire

Life as an intern on the Microsoft Student Placement Programme

ukacademia — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:18:00 GMT

Based in Reading and London, our placements last 48 weeks, beginning with a week-long induction designed to introduce the student to all the different areas of the business and identify objectives for their professional development.

Subsequent learning will take the form of on-the-job training within thier team, bespoke skills training and one-to-one performance reviews. Most importantly, they'll do real work and have real opportunities to make a genuine impact on our business and their future.

The benefits of a Microsoft Student Placement don’t merely apply to their future career, however. There’s also some pretty hefty advantages to getting involved with Microsoft from day one, including a £14,500 a year salary, £500 sign on bonus, 25 days holiday per year and – should you wish to return to Microsoft on the MACH programme – a fast-track to the last stage of the assessment process.

Please encourage your students to apply by returning a completed application form available here to sturec@microsoft.com quoting placement08. They might even end up working in our team and take over from Ben Coley from De Montfort and Muhammad Walji from Brunel