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It’s time I complete my series of posts related to the Imagine Cup. And what a way to end a weekend. The event was held at the Newseum, in downtown Washington D.C., a magnificent venue that I highly recommend visiting. I arrived at about 8:30, and immediately got ready to blog. Some of you may have sat in on my live blog. I was lucky enough to have Microsoft’s Alfred Thompson and GenInc.Tv’s Genevieve L’Esperance join the live stream. They covered the Game Design competition while I sat and watched the Software Design presentations. I was happy to see such innovative projects, and quite frankly was blown away by most of the presentations.

After all of the presentations, I made my way up to the Community Showcase. This is where the competitors get to show off their projects to important individuals visiting the event. There were people from Microsoft, Government, and the Media all present at the event. One notable journalist in attendance was Brennan LaBrie, 10 year old reporter for Time For Kids magazine. I highly recommend you check out his blog, as he has covered some great events and has done an excellent job bringing back the stories.

Next thing I knew, the special guest had arrived. That’s right, James Cameron, director of Avatar and Titanic, visited the Community Showcase. He was ushered from team to team by his staff, but I was lucky enough to snag two minutes of his time:

(Please forgive the horrible quality of the video. We were in very tight quarters.)

Next, we made our way back down to the presentation rooms to hear the keynote speaker, Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer. He spoke for a while about innovation and the future of technology. James Cameron also took the podium for a while, talking about what kind of technological innovation went into Avatar, and how Microsoft helped him create the movie.

And then it was time to find out who had won the competition. Mark Hindsbo, General Manger of Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism, took the stage once again to announce the winners of the GDI and SDI competition. The rankings were:

Software Design Teams

• Grand Prize:     Mobilife, University of California, Davis
• First Prize:        MangoBunnies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, DePauw University
• Second Prize:   Extraplaid, Utah State University
• Third Prize:      Team Blob, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology

Game Teams

• Grand Prize:   To Be Announced, Central Piedmont Community College & U North Carolina
• First Prize:      Coffee Powered Altruism, Yale University
• Second Prize:  Ifrit Salsa, University of Houston
• Third Prize:     LeveL 13, University of Houston

It was truly an incredible accomplishment for each of these teams, and they each did a fantastic job. Everyone quickly cleared the stage so the teams could have their photo op. I returned to the Community Showcase, where I caught up with Anthony Salcito for a quick follow up question:

After that, it was time for me to head home. I said my goodbyes to all of the awesome people I had met, and made my way to the airport with MangoBunnies, Diane Curtis, and a few other Microsoft developers. Next thing I knew, I was on my plane and returning to Port Huron.

I just wanted to conclude by giving a special thanks to Austin Stewart, Jessica Anderson, Hilary Pike, Diane Curtis, and Alfred Thompson. Thank you all so much for making my time in D.C. so fantastic.

Until next time,
Patrick Godwin

Sunday morning was the more relaxed day of the competition. No one was presenting to any judges on Sunday. Everyone seemed a bit relaxed. Sure they had a big announcement coming later that day, but it was time to rest.

The day consisted of the competitors going around the D.C. Office attending sessions about new Microsoft technologies. They had sessions about the KIN, NUI, .Net, Windows Phone, and plenty more. I was able to sit in on the NUI/Natal session, which was very informative and interesting.

Between sessions, I was able to catch up with Team AwesomeSauce, a game design team, and talk with them about their project:

After that, I sat in on the Microsoft Recruiting session, to learn a bit about what it’s like to interview for a technical position at Microsoft. I’m not going to go into details about that session now, but I will cover the important notes in a later blog post.

Before long, 4:20PM rolled around. I made my way to the room where the finalists would be announced, and got ready to tweet the results. During the time before the announcement, I chatted with Mark Hindsbo, General Manager of Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism for Microsoft USA, about the event. He was excited to see so many young people passionate about computer science and innovation. He felt proud to be a part of the event. Before I knew it, the time was 4:30 and the announcement had to begin.

The announcement started of with Jessica Anderson, the business manager for Microsoft Student Insiders, talking about the trip to the Newseum for the finals. Once that was done, the announced that special guest James Cameron, director of Avatar and Titanic, would be joining us for the finals at the Newseum.

Once the logistics was out of the way, it was time to announce who was going to be competing on Monday. Mark Hindsbo took center stage, announcing the top 4 SDI and GDI teams:

Software Design Teams

• Extraplaid, Utah State University
• MangoBunnies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, DePauw University
• Mobilife, University of California, Davis
• Team Blob, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology

Game Teams

• Coffee Powered Altruism, Yale University
• Ifrit Salsa, University of Houston
• LeveL 13, University of Houston
• To Be Announced, Central Piedmont Community College

After this, each team was debriefed, and the rest of us made our way back to the hotel for some rest before another busy day.

Join us live on April 26th as we cover the Imagine Cup 2010 US Finals at the Newseum in Washtington D.C.. We’ll have Alfred Thompson from Microsoft, Gen from Geninc.tv, and Erin “Ed” Donahue, mentor of finalist team MangoBunnies. Set a reminder for yourself below.

The first day here at the Imagine Cup was pretty hectic, with competitors scrambling to make sure their presentations were ready for the judges. Each team was given a 50 minute block of time with a panel of judges, where they would demo their project, pitch their business plan, and field questions from the judges. After that, they were released from their presentation rooms to talk with the camera crews from Microsoft Press. I was lucky enough to grab a few minutes with some of the teams for a filmed interview.

During the first day of the US Imagine Cup Finals, I had the pleasure to speak with Anthony Salcito, Microsoft’s Vice President of Worldwide Education. We talked about the need for new approaches to technology in education, and then spoke for a while about what the Imagine Cup means for Microsoft and for the community. I filmed our conversation about the Imagine Cup, which you can watch below. A very special thanks to Austin Stewart, from Microsoft’s PR team, who helped get me this great opportunity to meet Mr. Salcito.

More tomorrow morning.