Imagine Cup Stories from 2011

re: Imagine Cup Stories from 2011

Susan Ibach — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:39:12 GMT

Hi Elisabeth,

I agree 100% that it would be great to see more Canadian students participating in the Imagine Cup. That's why I am very excited that we are hosting Canadian finals for the 2012 Imagine Cup. We are supporting two categories. Software Design & Windows Phone/Game. The top 3 teams in each cagtegory will be flown to Toronto for the Canadian Finals. The way Imagine Cup categories work, when you host finals, the winner in Software Design attends the worldwide finals in Australia, so we know there will be a Canadian team representing us in Sydney next year! The phone teams who attend the world finals are selected by an international judging panel, so we'll have to wait and see how they judge our Canadian entries to see if we have a Canadian team in that category as well. But Canadians will definitely have a bigger presence in Imagine Cup this year. Keep an eye on our student blog, godevmental.com and www.imaginecup.com for more details. Or email me at susan.ibach@microsoft.com for more details.

re: Imagine Cup Stories from 2011

Stephen.Ibaraki — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:02:41 GMT

Elisabeth, your points on improved Canadian participation are good ones. I commend Gabriel on his mentorship of students and encourage those in academia to spread the word.

re: Imagine Cup Stories from 2011

Stephen.Ibaraki — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:00:13 GMT

Chris, as you indicated, there is much value from encouraging a wide range of activities. However, I see value in early exposure to computing as well due to reality of the information age that we live in.

re: Imagine Cup Stories from 2011

Elisabeth Vanderveldt — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:46:20 GMT

Having seen and spent time with Imagine Cuo teams in 2010 for the U.S. finals I can attest to the amazing technology solutions these students are producing. More impressive is the burning desire these students have to be socially reposnislbe citizens and create solutions that will benefit the most disadvantaged citizens globally.

HOWEVER I'd love to see more CANADIAN participation. We have the best and brightest. Let's get them engaged. Kudos to Microsoft for keeping this going year over year.

re: Imagine Cup Stories from 2011

Christopher Frey — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:23:16 GMT

Of course this is one of the most important initiatives for the future. We need to use young peoples ability to be creative and to find new ways which we might have missed in the past. It is very important to develop those skills and to listen to our kids when they are young (and not yet spoiled from their first years in a career :)). Regarding 'young kids' I would still suggest to FIRST let them develop the grounders of creativity in a non-virutal world, a world they can touch, smell and listen to. This 'entry level of creativity' you still gain the old fashioned way: playing child games, sports, music, literature, scene play and rethoric ... computers are machines - there is no (and I mean really zero) value of teaching young kids how to use a computer. LET THEM PLAY with other kids; the computer they will discover later and more mature.