Imagine Cup and the Rural Innovation Award — Michael Rawding

Those of you that follow Microsoft might be familiar with Imagine Cup – an annual student technology competition that Microsoft sponsors. This year Unlimited Potential has worked with Imagine Cup to add a new category -- the Rural Innovation Award.

 

At its core, Imagine Cup is about capturing the creativity of university students from all over the world and building on their unique perspectives to develop technology solutions that address the challenges and issues they care about and that are unique to their countries. With the Rural Innovation Award, we’re beginning to harness the energy and the innovations of the competitors and channeling them to tackle the challenges addressed by Unlimited Potential – creating relevant, accessible and affordable technology for the next 5 billion people who are not currently served by technology. Rural computing efforts have the potential to drive some of the most inventive and critical new technologies of our day.

 

Our shared access team is committed to using technology to help the nearly 3.5 billion people in rural underserved communities realize their potential, and help enable socio-economic development. This work is a unique facet to Microsoft’s global approach. The personal computer industry has historically evolved around markets found in developed nations, so the unique characteristics of these markets have therefore had a profound influence on the way computing solutions are designed, manufactured and sold. While the benefits of computing power have been realized by the developed world, billions of people living in poor nations have been excluded from this process.

 

Microsoft is in a distinctive position to explore new approaches to technology for underserved rural communities – given the global reach of our work, the resources and expertise we can apply to this challenge, and the commitment from the very top of our company to affect positive change through the ‘Creative Capitalism’ approach that Bill Gates talks about.

 

Take mobile phones as an example. They have taken off in emerging markets because they offer a very relevant and affordable way for both urban and rural citizens to communicate efficiently, get help in an emergency, and reach beyond their locality to grow small businesses. Now we are also seeing the emergence of mobile scenarios that can help bank the unbanked. In my recent trip to Kenya, I looked into a new digital payment system that allows users to transfer money across mobile phones using text messaging. One of our collective challenges in this industry is to try and find relevant ways to reach customers on the most basic of phones.

 

The exciting thing for me is that many of the greatest opportunities for technology to spark growth and development lie in rural areas. But these areas are also among the most difficult to serve because they are often economically challenged and lack adequate electrical power and telecommunications infrastructure. That’s one of the core reasons the Unlimited Potential Group is sponsoring the Rural Innovation Award at Imagine Cup. No one company is going to be able to address all the challenges of how to reach people who live on less than $2 a day in impactful ways. As part of our commitment to creating relevant, accessible and affordable technologies for the next 5 billion people, we want to tap the the imagination and innovation of the brightest university students, many from emerging markets, to apply themselves to tackling these critical and complex challenges with us.

 

The finalists who are headed to the Imagine Cup 2008 in Paris competing for the Rural Innovation Award are from Colombia, Egypt, South Africa, Indonesia and India. I’m really impressed with their innovative approaches to the challenges facing rural and urban underserved populations. The breadth of challenges they try to tackle is really exciting. The projects span looking at re-forestation efforts in South America; making public transport more reliable and accessible; making agriculture more efficient in India; and helping communities to share information on environmental issues using their mobile phones in Indonesia. They will present their solutions in front of a panel of four judges, each of whom is a thought leader in the area of technology for development and has contributed tremendously to the field. We’re very excited that they’ll be sharing the stage with the students in Paris. I hope you’ll take a look at the judges’ and students’ bios – and follow their progress in Paris as the finalists compete for the Rural Innovations Award for the first year ever.

 

Thank you,

Michael Rawding, Vice President, Unlimited Potential Group