Top ideas for Microsoft Imagine Cup 2009 competition
If you need ideas for your Imagine Cup 2009 project, take a look here and see the list of 7 ideas for Imagine Cup invitationals. This year’s theme is “Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today.” and I’d like to try and help you with some suggestions.
As you can see theme is very broad. How to step up to the challenge and pick up the theme?
Here are just few suggestions you can try experimenting with:
- World poverty – Explore some new business models targeted at deprived parts of Earth, think about revenue sharing models, micro-credits…
- Hunger – Develop and think about new concepts appropriate for smaller communities in areas with lack of water and other resources, how can they produce and sell their products and make a decent living from that?
- Sustainability – How to develop community and society in general but without making harm to environment and other resources (think about small farms, recycle ideas, responsible usage of resources, fight against erosion and mudslides with some planning, urban development…).
- Gender equality – How to empower both genders in all areas of human work, try searching for comparative advantages from both genders, inspire yourself with great figures from history, develop resources for education on this matter…
- Fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases – This is a big one. Of course it is not expected from you to deliver the whole solution by yourself alone, but think about tools that might ease the work of doctors, improve the quality of service at hospitals, engage patients in their healing process, think about mathematical models for suppression of diseases, play with numerical methods and see how to visualize them and present them in great manner that is both easy to use and to understand.
- Climate change and challenges related to that – Mathematical and (geo)physical models, simulations or just awesome education tools for raising global awareness. Think about virtualization and all challenges that might bring in in reducing power consumption but in increasing computing power and development. (I would go and bet on that virtualization thing if I could compete again this year).
- Anything else that you just think it is great no matter it is not mentioned here (after all this is only my personal list shared with all of you – feel free to add to it in comments and I might event post follow-up on this one).
Bonus hint: Do not try to invent or to create problem – just find solution to existing one. Best tip I can share with you from my personal experience – talk with real people about their real problems and challenges they are facing. Go to NGO’s. eco and environmental organizations, local governments, hospitals. Talk to each and every person or organization you might find interesting. And always, really always, listen to them, and even if their problems might not look as appealing to you as you might expected – think about them more than once. Develop the idea, draw some sketches and then again – talk with them.
The United Nations has identified some of the hardest challenges in the world today in its Millennium Goals – look for links and other resources at the end of this article. Take a look at their United Nations Development Goals webpage.
This year is bringing some new invitationals: Mashup and Design.
Design is new, you say?
Well, at first, user interface design invitational for Imagine Cup 2009 was cancelled. And now, Microsoft is bringin’ design competition back. Design students from all over the world are happy again, and they can engage in some brainstorming and preparation of their designs. Since UX is my passion, you can be sure I will be keeping my eyes on everything that is happening in this particular invitational.
Just to share interesting news with you – I have heard that team Maksuz form Croatia is looking into creating some resources that they might end up sharing with other students into this competition – UXPassion.com will see what is going on and let you all know.
Anyways, stay tuned because I will do my best and try to cover as much about User Interface Design invitational I can. Feel free to send your suggestions and ideas in comments as well as any questions you might have. I will give you several more ideas on what can you do to improve your deliverables, suggest you some tools and technologies and of course, I will do my best to help you out with questions you might have.
Good luck!
Resources
17 Responses to “ Top ideas for Microsoft Imagine Cup 2009 competition ”
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Thanks a lot for your sharing ideas. I’m really inspired from this article. I’ve read and explored eight millennium goals from UN site. Then, I guess the 6th is better for me. It’s about Combat HIV, Malaria and Other Diseases. I agree with u that we don’t make new problem, but search existing problem by interview to related people. Thanks, bro…
regards,
Salman Salsabila
Faculty of Computer Science
University of Indonesia
Thank you Salman, I am happy that this article was helpful and You can expect some more to come. All the best with your competition!
Please allow me to share your ideas with my region and I llok forward to get more
@Moatasem: No problem, I’ll try to contact you on Communicator during next week so we can see how to help students with this and maybe some other ideas. Looking forward to this! (t-vicip)
my salutation,
i am teacher in a secondary school in Cameroon. i have a great idea and i would like to register for the imagine cup top ideas 2009.i wish to have the entry form, application form or procedures.
best wishes,
fongoh eric
we wish to have links with other organisations in order to share our work and ideas.
thanks.
If you want to sign-up for competition, you should go to http://www.imaginecup.com and select your competition and enter required information.
VOLUNTEERING POSITION NOW OPEN
TO TEACH IN THE ENVIROMENTAL CLUBS
IN SCHOOLS.
We have many opportunities for volunteers. If you’re interested or talented in a specific area, we most likely can use you! ICENECDEV is proud to work amongst various faiths and backgrounds.
At ICENECDEV we strive to give our volunteers the big-picture about world poverty and development. To do this, we ask that they get involved in all aspects of our programs. This means that all volunteers will be involved in the hands on teaching and care-giving in the environmental clubs in schools, as well as the administration and general management of the organization. In this way, we aim to fill the missing information about issues concerning modern development, education and environmental issues.
We also have a great need for overseas volunteers and If you are interested in volunteering at our organization or our environmental clubs projects in schools. Please send us an email and we will contact you as soon as possible.
All our volunteers will be immediately be assigned a task that they can work on. These tasks take from 1 to 4 hours a week and vary from assisting with sponsor letters, teaching in schools, promotional material, website maintenance and many other tasks. You will have a choice of which task you would like to do. This task will help to introduce you to other ICENECDEV volunteers and to the organizational structure. It will also play a part in the application process, as it allows us to assess your unique skills and capabilities.
With all our volunteers from around the world, dedicating a few hours of their time and expertise to ICENECDEV, we are able to keep our operational and administration costs to a minimum. This allows us to open our volunteer positions without charging high application fees or volunteering fees. We hope you will participate in ICENECDEV to make volunteering an affordable experience for everyone.
Happy Christmas and a prosperous new year 2009
Management of ICENECDEV
OUR GREETINGS,
LETTER OF VOLUNTEERING
We are non-governmental and non –profit organization situated in Buea in the South West Province of Cameroon, established to address environmental issues through sensitization, and education.
We have the following as objectives of ICENECDEV;
• To promote environmental education and governance,
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The mission of ICENECDEV is to create a society where people respect the basic values of nature as a fundamental model to community development.
We have opened doors of our organization from the 1st February for volunteers to share knowledge and capacity building training, in order to meet up with the objectives and expectations of the organization.
The volunteer(s) would have to fulfill the following conditions;
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In case of any additional information feel free to contact us.
Yours Faithfully,
Fongoh Eric;
Executive Director;
contact:+23796278931
Email:fongoheric2006@yahoo.com
amazing good stuff.thanks for this Microsoft Imagine Cup 2009 competition tips .
I have no programming experience and am still competing. I have lots of ideas, similar to yours about helping doctors in their efforts to beat HIV etc (gee I hope that’s not plagiarizing!)
What software skills do I need to learn?
I’m guessing c++ and java for sure..
Hi,
First of all – congratulations and I wish you all the best in your competition. As for SW skills you might need – I’d say go for C# since it’s very popular, powerful and once you learn it you will be able to utilize your knowledge in other areas. You will be able to develop for WindowsForms and for new and cool WPF and Silverlight applications / solutions.
You can find bunch of tutorials on this and on many other sites, and feel free to ask. I will do my best to help you out or at least to point you in right direction.
Again, all the best and good luck competing!
hi ,
would you please explain this virtualization and all challenges that might bring in in reducing power consumption but in increasing computing power and development. i wud like to use it for Imagine cup 2010 please..
Hi Akhand,
I’m not really a virtualization guy, but some of the blogs you might want to take a look at are: http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/default.aspx, http://virtualy.wordpress.com/, http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/ and http://blogs.technet.com/mattmcspirit
Thanx..
It is very helpful in thinking!!