Nathan J Peterson, onsite in New York

The bright lights were shining inside the Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City and all eyes were on the stage in anticipation of the announcement for 2011’s Imagine Cup World Finals winners. Flags were held high and cheers rang loud as each of the 15 countries remaining held out hope that their team would bring home a victory in social innovation.

As the large screen played a sleekly cut recap of the Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s voice rang out telling everyone in the room “Have passion, tenacity, and great ideas, the world will be your oyster”. Ballmer’s words were not the only inspirational quotes of the night. We heard from the brilliant Dr. Fiona Wood who asked that someone in the room make her dream of one day creating a scar-less healing process for skin trauma victims, a reality. Actress and social philanthropist Eva Longoria graced the Imagine Cup stage expressing her sincere admiration for all of the contestants and their tenacity towards solving some of the world’s toughest problems. Most importantly, we heard the acceptance speeches from the 2011 Imagine Cup winners!

Are you ready to find out who took home the trophies? Without further ado, let’s learn a bit about the challenges and meet the winners from the 2011 Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals:

Windows 7 touch challenge: “Touch to remove barriers to accessibility.” 

Anthony Froissant and Martins Fonesca Jose were inspired by a family in France who were struggling to care for their autistic children. The team, from University d’Orleans, found themselves asking, how technology could help bridge the gap and help these children and their parents. With that, project “India Rose” was born, creating a system using touch screen technology to help children express their needs through pictorials. Felicitations to team India Rose!

Orchard Challenge: “Use an up-and-coming open source content management system platform based on ASP.NET to change the world one website at a time”

Peter Sandberg Brun and Mads Sandberg Brun are twin brothers from Denmark who discussed amongst themselves a simple question-how can we make websites around the world more accessible to those who cannot read or write well? Their answer-AT Tools-a collection of accessibility and translation tools that help people challenged by comprehending web content to understand it like their peers do. Tillykke team Denmark!

Interoperability Challenge: “Blend out-of-the-box Microsoft technologies with other technologies to connect people, data, or diverse systems in new ways and at the same time learn the skills you need in today’s job market.”

George Karakatsiotis and Vangos Pterneas hail from the Athens University of Economics and Business in Greece and are fans of the history found in archeological sites and museums. Recognizing a lack of information when visiting many sites, mixed with an overall dissatisfaction in options for people with disabilities, project “Touring Machine” took shape. Touring Machine utilizes a host of technologies including Bing SOAP API, Windows Communication Foundation, Deep Zoom, ASP.Net, and Windows Phone technologies to create a state of the art personal tour guide that adheres to individual characteristics of a site visitor. Opah George and Vangos!!

Windows Phone 7: “Build an XAP application that will change the world, you will be among the first to ever do so!”

Korea looked a bit like Meryl Streep at the Oscars, all smiles and a lot of awards, taking both first and second place in the Windows Phone 7 competition. Pilju Bae, Go-Woon Choi, and Heesang Roh lived up to their team name-Homerun-by belting it out of the park to take first place for project “Peekaboo” which creates a private network for busy family members to be able to communicate on the go. Kudos to Korea!

Digital Media: “How can you enlighten the world about an issue using digital media?”

In Romania, Ciprian Maxim and Razvan Diaconu took notice of a growing homeless population and the sad realization that there are men, women, and children in their communities who live a life wondering where their next meal will come from. “A Chance for Change” illustrates the opportunity for technology to help those who are less fortunate by documenting the story of a poor man who is given a cell phone. The story is not about the phone, but what it stands for, namely that access to technology can facilitate a better standard of living. Felicitari!

Game Design: “How can gaming help to solve the world’s toughest problems?” Sub categories include Mobile, Web, and Windows/Xbox.

Mobile: Team Geekologic from France set out to cultivate a generation of more environmentally conscious individuals with their award winning game Brainergy. The Windows Phone 7 game challenges the user to solve problems based on renewable energy.

Team Geekologic from France showcases its project in the Game Design – Mobile competition to press and attendees of the event’s first showcase at the Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals in New York City.

Web: Have you read “The Book of Elm”? Team Cellardoor created this visual masterpiece with inspiration from their mentor Tomasz Gdala’s daughter, Zosia who is in kindergarten in Poland. Like many children, she has a fast moving attention span which can make reading books a challenge- not as much for the child as the parent. The Book of Elm creates a more interactive atmosphere for reading and at the same time teaches the environmental basics 3R’s-Reduce, Reuse, Recycle-if you add Reading you now have the 4R’s!  

Windows/Xbox: Brazil’s Signum Games team loves to volunteer and help people in their communities. They were excited to build a game for the Imagine Cup competition that allows users to solve the problems of their city by creating volunteer programs and carefully utilizing resources.

Great work from all of the game design teams, congratulations!

Embedded Development: Where can you embed a device or system to help save lives?

In 2010, there was a major building fire in Taiwan that caused the death of many people due to smoke inhalation and inability to find the proper escape route. Che-Yi Hung, Shuo-Hung Chen, Yi-Cheng Chen, and Hsiao-Mei Lin wondered why there was not a better system to guide these people to safety. Working together they built “RIGHT!! This Way”-a fire emergency guidance system that detects the safest route to an exit in real-time and illuminates the path to safety using LEDs displayed on the wall.

Team NTHCS from Taiwan earned first place in Embedded Development for designing a project that helps to save lives in the instance of a fire emergency.

People's Choice Award: Exactly like it sounds-with a global vote taking place, who has the heart of people around the world?

Sahidul Islam, Mustakim Ali, and Avishek Ahmed touched the lives of many people around the world.  When Eva Longoria took the stage to announce them as the People’s Choice Award winner for 2011, there were great cheers for their amazing project “Third Eye”.  Inspired by a blind woman they met in the streets of Bangladesh, Team Rapture used Windows Phone 7, Windows Azure, and Bing to transform a smartphone into being an accessible resource for blind people. Third Eye includes 17 unique features including a book reader, email reader, and nearby places. Simply innovative!

Software Development: Software has been a solution to many of the greatest problems the world has seen, both simple and complex. How can software solve some of the toughest current social issues?

Did you know the second leading killer of young people across the world today is road traffic accidents? With the number of road deaths reaching epidemic levels in Ireland, Team Hermes - Matthew Padden, Aine Conaghan, Calum Cawley, and James McNamara - felt this issue on a personal level and took action through the Imagine Cup competition. Using Bing Maps, Internet Explorer, Windows 7, Windows, Azure, and more- Team Hermes built a software device that simply plugs into a vehicle and transfers data back and forth through the cloud to inform both the driver and a third party (parent, boss, owner) of driving conditions and behavior. For example, if your child was driving while intoxicated, the device would sense any erratic driving and report to both the driver and designated third party, in this case a concerned parent. Think of all the deaths a device like this could prevent by implementing instant accountability - genius Team Hermes!

The evening of the2011 Imagine Cup Worldwide finals will not soon be forgotten and is likely just a rehearsal for the celebration the students will have when they get home.

Congratulations to all the participants of the Imagine Cup – over 350,000 students around the world and over 400 at the finals in New York -  it is YOU who make this the greatest competition of social innovation on the planet, you truly change the world for the better. We can’t wait to see what 2012 will look like-shine up your boomerangs and we will see you in Australia!