Mentor a team of Canadian students to Imagine Cup World Finals

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IC14_CompetitionHeroWeb_970x300_Set01 Microsoft Canada recently announced the 2014 Canadian Imagine Cup finals. The best teams typically have a mentor to guide them. Could you be that mentor?

There are many talented students across Canada with great ideas and a passion to bring those ideas to life. But sometimes they need a little help.

The Imagine Cup is one of the world’s most prestigious technology competitions. It challenges students to use the technology in their hands to build something amazing. Each team may have up to four students, and each team may also have a mentor. Sometimes that mentor is a faculty member, but sometimes that mentor is a professional developer in industry. Your experience with working to deadlines, overcoming technical obstacles, managing scope, and setting priorities could help a team of students succeed with their Imagine Cup project.

Students can enter one of three categories:

  • Games – build a cool game
  • Innovation – build something that will change the way we do something
  • Citizenship – build something that will help others.

clip_image001Thanks to Intel winners in each of those three categories the latest 2-in-1 touch enabled PCs.

As a mentor you don’t do the coding, you act as a guide and coach throughout the project. If the team does end up representing Canada at the World finals in Seattle next summer, you do get to travel with them to help them through the world finals as well.

Sometimes we get caught up in our day-day jobs, and sometimes we forget the passion we had when we first started developing. I remember getting those magazines in the mail with the code I could type in to play games on my TRS-80! (Okay I just dated myself, I know). Rekindle your passion for technology and reach out to a professor or instructor to see if they have any students who would be interested in participating and need a mentor. The passion and enthusiasm of students is contagious! My involvement in Imagine Cup has given me a new respect for the talent in our Canadian schools.

You can be a part of Imagine Cup! If you have any questions about Imagine Cup, post them here or at Canadian Developer Connection on LinkedIn. Reach out to a professor or instructor at a college or university near you.