“We believe that students have the power to change the world,” said Anthony Salcito, VP of Worldwide Education, Microsoft.
“Encouraging students to study science and technology is critical to developing a skilled 21st-century work force. Through the Imagine Cup, we are bringing together the brightest young minds and empowering them to use technology to make a difference in the lives of people in their local communities and around the world.”
More than 14,000 high-school and college students throughout the country registered for the competition, and 20 student teams were chosen to participate in the Imagine Cup 2010 U.S. Finals in Washington, D.C., on April 26. The U.S. finalists will vie for the chance to represent the nation among students from over 100 countries and regions in the worldwide finals this July in Warsaw, Poland.
Participants use their creativity, passion and knowledge of technology to design solutions to enhance education, healthcare and environmental sustainability. Student projects this year range from an educational video game that allows students around the world to interact to a business intelligence tool designed to analyze and recommend ways to lower the electrical consumption of computer networks. Competitions at the U.S. Finals are conducted in several categories including Software Design, Game Design and Web Design. The U.S. Imagine Cup finalists include the following:
Software Design U.S. Finalists
Game Design U.S. Finalists
Although the U.S. finalists for these competitions have been selected, there are still opportunities for students in America and around the world to participate in the new Envisioning 2020 Award and the Windows Phone 7 Series “Rockstar” Award categories. Participants can extend current projects underway in the main competition categories for these special awards or can enter the awards exclusively.
The Envisioning 2020 Award challenges students to express their vision for how technology could transform people’s lives by the year 2020. Students are asked to create video submissions that are inventive, have the greatest potential for impact and are the most technically plausible to transform our lives 10 years in the future.
To win the Windows Phone 7 Series “Rockstar” Award, Windows Phones and cash prizes, teams are challenged to create a Windows Phone 7 Series application (app) in either Silverlight or XNA. Windows Phone 7 Series is a revolutionary new platform from Microsoft, and participating students have the opportunity to be one of the first developers to build an app for it. Students enrolled in the Microsoft DreamSpark program, which provides free access to some of the most advanced developer tools from Microsoft, are waived registration fees for the Windows Phone Marketplace.
Free Windows Phone Developer Tools are available here.
More information about the Imagine Cup is available here and the official Imagine Cup blog.
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