Heal the World - Make it a better place: Imagine Cup Announced!
Imagine Cup 2015 has been announced. If you are a Canadian Student and not participating in the Global Student Technology Competition, you are missing out! In this blog post, I will discuss specific details about the World Citizenship Category.
How many times are you given a chance to make a difference in the world? How many times are you given a chance to impact the world? Well here is your chance and the perfect platform to do exactly that. Welcome to Imagine Cup 2015: World Citizenship Category!
This year the World Citizenship Category in Canada is being sponsored by TakingItGlobal. Since its inception in 2003, The Imagine Cup World Citizenship category has seen some impressive submissions in the fields of health, social, education and environment. All you need to do is observe and find a problem in either your own life, your community or in the world and boom! – that is your opportunity. As they say, with every problem comes an opportunity.
One of the most impressive submissions last year was Eyenaemia, which is a non-invasive screening tool for Anaemia. If you just think about it, all you have to do is literally take a selfie (focusing on your conjunctiva) and the app will analyze and give you the results. Wow! That's right folks, it is all about keeping an open eye and figuring out what problem do you want to solve in this world through technology. You can have a look at the 2014 world finalists submission here.
What is in it for you?
The worldwide Imagine Cup winners will take home $50,000 (US). Other than the prize, I can assure you this will be one of the best experiences in your life. You will be meeting other finalists from all over the world showcasing their projects. You will also get a chance to meet some of the most influential celebrities in the technology space, get feedback and learn from them directly.
The winning team in the Citizenship Competition in Canada will get a chance to have a 30 minute Skype Call with a recruiter from Microsoft Corporate, AND a 30 minute Skype Call with Michael Furdyk, co-founder of TakingItGlobal, which provides innovative global education programs that empower youth to understand and act on the world's greatest challenges.
"TakingITGlobal is committed to empowering students to understand and act on the world's greatest challenges, and what better way to create change than leveraging the power of technology to engage your peers in causes that matter? We're excited to see the projects submitted to the 2015 Imagine Cup's World Citizenship Category!" – Michael Furdyk
What do you have to do?
All you have to do is build a solution to address a social issue using Microsoft Technologies and Platforms. You can build a tab/desktop/mobile app on the Windows platform using some tool from the Visual Studio family or use Azure as the Cloud Platform.
The deadline to submit your project is April 4th, 2015 8PM GMT.
Need more direction about what issue you want to tackle?
As already mentioned above, your application can deal with any problem in the social sphere: disease, natural disaster, civil rights, poverty, gender equality, health or environment. If you are still not sure what kind of issue you want to deal with, check out Global Issues that has some useful insights about Culture, Globalization, Education, Health, Human Rights and many more such topics that can give you a sense of the problems in the world. International Days can also be looked into which gives you an idea about the concerns and international interests that you could associate your application with.
Now that you have started thinking about the opportunity, what are the next steps?
- Find a team
- Register your team here
- Develop your application
- Submit your project by April 4th, 2015 8PM GMT
For any other details, such as submission guidelines, registration details, please refer www.imaginecup.ca or drop an email to ImagineCupCanada@microsoft.com .
We really look forward to each of your submissions and hope for a strong representation for Canada in the World Finals this year. Go Canada go!
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