Students from all over the world have yet another chance to compete for prizes for their best innovations using Microsoft products and technology on the Microsoft Imagine Cup.
The concluded finals in July that was held in Russia, now the company is already gearing up for the next year’s competition.
John Scott Tyne from Imagine Cup, on their blog, wrote that the company has been working on plans for this season since the beginning of this year and have great new contestants as well as a lot of ‘cool stuff’ to share.
Microsoft detailed the continued format that spans three different categories: Games, Innovation, and World Citizenship, and added that there will be a prize of $50 000 for each winner in the respective categories.
The company however noted that there will be a lot of chances in next year’s competition as they plan to add the world-wide semi-final round.
“We will spotlight every one of those World Semi-finalist teams here on our website as each National Final concludes and then, starting in May, all 200+ World Semi-finalist teams will enter an online round here at our website. In that round our judges will determine the teams who win a trip to Seattle to compete in person at the 2014 World Finals in late July.”
Microsoft added that they are retiring the three technology-based challenges from 2013 and are instead starting three new ones, the first of which has now started.
The company also noted that these challenges require do not any programming at all as they are to help student get started with the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
Some of the new challenges include
Pitch Video Challenge (September-October) – involves recording a three to five minute video with your team pitching your project
Project Blueprint Challenge (November-December) –involves providing a written project proposal covering your users, requirements, scenarios, and business model.
User Experience Challenge (January-February)- How will people actually use your software? A great user experience transforms any solution so show us your user flow, wireframes, and a visual target for how your software will look on screen.
In all the years you have run this competition it is quite compelling to ask they motivating factor of this event recurring and what happens to the winners after winning the competition and not forgetting the criteria they use in selecting the winners.
What factor affects the decision of the final location because Africa too has good locations to handle the occasion, and also do the competitors take care of themselves in terms of accommodation and the like.
