Last week, my team from Imagine Cup (Team NTNU) got an invitation to TechEd 2006 in Barcelona from the organizers of Imagine Cup and TechEd EMEA. They want us to represent our solution from Imagine Cup. I’m actually not sure what they exactly want us to do. Probably we get a booth with some displays where we can show of our solution to participants and journalists. Looking forward to this! I’ve never been on a large developer conference like this.

Right now, as I’m writing this blogpost I’m on the airplane back to Norway. It’s quite amazing what technology enable us to do now days. Here, I’m sitting at an airplane and surfing the internet, posting new pictures to my Flickr account, talk with friends on messenger. Amazing! Just got to love technology!

Anyway, it’s not why I’m writing this blogpost! I’m writing this to say thank you to all the people that made Imagine Cup 2006 possible. Joe Wilson and his team from Microsoft that organized Imagine Cup and the World Final. To all the students from around the world participated in Imagine Cup. And last, but not least India who hosted this fine event! Looking forward to next years Imagine Cup!

Channel9 did an interview with Joe Wilson, check it out here!

I whish that students from Norway going realized how big Imagine Cup really is. You can’t find a better arena for showing off your skills, meet new friends and have fun. Next year I hope to see a Norwegian team in the Final as well!

Publicity from Imagine Cup 2006:

• http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2006/08/12/473687.html
• Computerworld.no 
• http://www.dagensit.no/min-it/article848038.ece
• http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=314315
• http://www.hegnar.no/IT-Kanalen/newsdet.asp?id=225807&cat=110
• http://www.nordlys.no/nyheter/article2230046.ece
• http://www.f-b.no/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060809/NYHET/60809012/0/FFK
• http://www.dagensit.no/bedrifts-it/article850515.ece
• http://www.nordlys.no/nyheter/article2232445.ece
• http://www.finnmarkdagblad.no/nyheter/article2230903.ece
• http://grunder.imaker.no/cgi-bin/grunder/imaker?id=1971
• http://www.amcham.no/news/news.asp?id=2165
• http://www.nettavisen.no/innenriks/article708217.ece

Today the winners of Imagine Cup 2006 where announced. We finished 3rd in the Software Design category.

Have to the blog later, because I’m on the way out to celebrate the achievement:)

Have added new photos from Imagine Cup to my Flickr account, check them out!

For the last couple of days I’ve been competing in the Imagine Cup 2006 World Final in Agra in India. We had a really interesting buss trip from New Dehli (where we arrived Friday night) to Agra. You can read more about that in Jonas blog.

There where in total 41 teams in the software category that qualified for the World Final in India. The first round of the final started yesterday (7. august). We and 11 other teams qualified from the first to the second round that was held today. Today we held a 35 minute presentation that I think went very well. The judges gave us a really god response on the presentation and the design of our product (MediWatch).

Tomorrow evening the 6 qualifiers for the third and last round are announced. Personally, I think we have a good chance. We did a good job today, “selling” our product to the judges.

I’m proud of us, and what we have achieved in this competition. Being one of the last 12 team in an Imagine Cup world final is an excellent achievement. There are so many talented students that have participated. I’ve seen some amazing products and solutions in the last couple of days. I feel privileged to bee here, and participating in this great competition against all the excellent competitors.

To give you an idea how big Imagine Cup really is, I want to point out some facts that I’ve learned in the last couple of days.

Imagine Cup is the largest technology competition in the world. It’s one of the highest profiled events in the international media. News stories covering the Imagine Cup 2006 have already reached over a quarter billion people. That puts Imagine Cup in the same category as the Oscar awards, a World Cup soccer match and Miss Universe!

More than 65 000 students from 100 countries have participated in Imagine Cup 2006. That is enough to fill a large soccer stadium!

I've posted some pictures from the Imagine Cup 2006 World Final on my Flickr account.

You should also check out my teammate’s blogs:

• J-K (Also known as Mr. PM)
• Jonas
  
• Hans Olav
  

We got some publicity from news papers and magazine in Norway when we won the Nordic Imagine Cup 2006 final.

The Norwegian magazine “Teknisk Ukeblad” published an article about us. Almost every engineer in Norway read this magazine every week. Their total print is about 90.000 copies each week. I know some students compare an article in “Teknisk Ukeblad” with being a poster girl in FHM (For Him Magazine). Well, I don’t look at it that way, but it was nice to get some publicity for the hard work we did. You can find this article here:

• http://www.tu.no/nyheter/ikt/article53247.ece (Online article)
• Teknisk Ukeblad (printed article, page 11)

The Norwegian online news paper digi.no also published a small article about a Norwegian team (us) from NTNU that competes in Imagine Cup 2006 Nordic final. I’m actually quite disappointed that they didn’t follow up this article. With the headline “the Norwegian team from NTNU won the Imagine Cup 2006 Nordic final” or something! You can find this article here: http://www.digi.no/php/art.php?id=302349.

I’ve uploaded photos from the Imagine Cup 2006 nordic final to my new Flickr account. When I get the rest of the photos from the other team members I’m will upload them as well.

I’m still a bit tired from the last week Imagine Cup race. The night before the final (5. may) we worked the whole night to get our prototype finished. We got about 1.5 hours of sleep before the big final. But it was absolutely worth it! Now I’m looking forward to the Imagine Cup 2006 world final that are held in India in the beginning of august 2006.

To the students that are reading this, I would like to say that this is a great opportunity and an Arena to show off your skills. A lot of employees from Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft came to our stand just to talk with us and listen to how we designed the system. They where really interested in our work, and asked all kind of questions. We also talked with general managers of Avanade and Accenture. I suppose as meeting new people, this also would look good on your CV. It’s a cool thing you can talk about in your next job interview.

I also met Aali Alikoski on the Imagine Cup 2006 Nordic Final. He works as an Academic Developer Evangelist in Microsoft Finland. He has written some blog posts about the final, you should check it out (http://blogs.msdn.com/aalialikoski/)! He did also shoot some videotape at the final. I’m hoping he is publishing an edited video on the net soon.

You can find some more information about the Imagine Cup on the public website (www.imaginecup.com) and the Norwegian Microsoft Student Community website (www.msstudent.no).

You can find my pictures from the Imagine Cup 2006 Nordic Final here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/goeran/sets/72057594128196432/.

 

We won! Now it’s celebration time! Have to blog more later!

Gøran

My team (Team NTNU) reached the Nordic final in Imagine Cup 2006. Watch “live” pictures from the final on flickr.

The jury will decide which team that will reach the World Final in India in about 30 minutes! I will update my blog when the decisions are announced!

Link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/j-k/sets/72057594125728297/

The team members are:
Me
Jan-Kristian (http://thespoke.net/blogs/prismejon/default.aspx)
Jonas (http://jonas.follesoe.no)
Hans Olav (http://hansolav.net)

Cheers

Gøran

Team NTNU