Leading the search for the next Bill Gates!

Demonstrating what can be achieved with .NET and its use in large enterprise systems or as a platform for new technology start-ups is something that can be done with whitepapers, evidence, demonstrations, testing but what isn’t always shown is how much innovation can be achieved in a short period of time! The recipe is simple. Take a bunch of students from around the world (UK, Greece, Brasil, Russia, Serbia and Slovenia), add a large telecommunication company in the form of BT, spice with an innovative technology company like Ubiquity and cook with the latest developer tools and platform from Microsoft and you get an exciting 2 week event called the BT/Microsoft Accelerator program - http://www.microsoft.com/uk/press/content/presscentre/releases/2006/01/PR03567.asp

Over the past two weeks each of these teams and some developer teams from BT have worked day and night to take new ideas or their Imagine Cup entries from 2005 and with some guidance from Ubiquity and BT developed a proof of concept to show executives from the 3 companies, international press and even venture capitalists who are interested in making this a reality. These teams are living proof of what the Software as a Service era can bring – all applications demonstrate the vision by harnessing software services provided over the web either as XML and rich client apps or traditional web sites and provide very rich experiences to users.

The runners:

OmniMusic (Russians) – the guitar wielding Russians showed a real-time music collaboration service which enables musicians to ‘jam’ together at real-time (orchestra level time delays - <50ms). These guys are talking to VCs and working with big music labels to make this a reality. For all you karaoke and rock’n’roll fans there is a future on the Web for you!!

Inova Gaming (Slovenia) – Inova is a solution which is designed to target the ever increasing investment that telcos are making for the next generation mobile and land based infrastructure. Inova provides a server and client based SDK so that budding Electronic Arts types can develop games which can be distributed to millions of users easily on the telecoms network. This is very neat and if that very frustrating ring tone can become a big success out of a stupid tune (Da,da,da,da,da) then games makers could be as big! Gaming marketplaces, an SDK and the infrastructure to support a community mean they are well placed to launch onto the web.

SignToTalk (Greece). A very moving application which enables the world of sign-language speakers to communicate with verbal speaking people and vice versa. Through the use of electromyography and some clever software interpretation the hand movements and gestures are converted into spoken word and speech can be converted to signed through animation on a PocketPC device. The team from Greece have been on the BBC news discussing this and are working with the Greek national organisation for the deaf.

Insomniacs (Serbia Montenegro)– the entertaining Serbian team demonstrated their real-time multi-media collaboration platform for emergency services showing how multiple elements in an emergency situation from police, fire, ambulance and patients coordinate and deal with the situation effectively using their technology. A very complete application which has far reaching uses outside of emergency services such as fleet management.

TravelReach (UK and Brazil…or the Brazenglish). This application was the most impressive for me, even though I have worked with the UK team on their entry for a while, as it took a great idea and applied the most new technology. Robert Scoble talks about Microsoft acquiring Web 2.0 companies, well, I think TravelReach is a company we should acquire before it even gets going – it takes the best of http://del.icio.us social networking and applies it to a massive worldwide travel industry and enables users to pick the best places to visit in a foreign country. Add on top of that the super rich mobile, Vista, Media Center and Windows Live experience it demonstrates the essence of what I believe the Web 2.0/SaaS experience on the Microsoft platform is all about.

Congratulations to all particpants in this workshop and I can’t wait to see what the Imagine Cup 06 brings. And if you think it was all fun and games check this photo out of two anonymous particpants sleeping in the presentation theatre an hour before team preps to the ‘Dragons Den’ panel of judges - Here

Mark