Software Design Competition

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The North American Software Design Competition is a team-based competition to create an innovative software application around the Imagine Cup theme to "Enable a sustainable Environment for all" The SDI is about motivating students to take their knowledge and skills, combined with their passion and flex their innovation muscle in applying them outside of the classroom.  Student teams, conceive, build and test an idea into a real-world application using .NET technology and implement /consuming an XML Web service.. All through the competition student teams are afforded the opportunity to be mentored by industry entrepreneurs to help launch their idea to change the world. See additional competition guidelines at https://imaginecup.com/competition/mycompetitionguidelines.aspx?competitionId=10

Round 1 runs from October 20th to January 25th, 2008, for students to establish their idea and produce a design spec. Students are asked to submit 3 items by the January 25th:

  1. Project Development Schedule per the template provided at https://www.microsoft4me.com/imaginecup/competitions/sdi/document_templates/SDI_teamname_Project_Template..xlsx
  2. Scenarios Document  and Design Requirements document per the template provided at https://www.microsoft4me.com/imaginecup/competitions/sdi/document_templates/SDI_teamname_featurelist.docx
  3. 30 second elevator pitch in .avi or .mpg video format

The second round - North America Semi-Finals runs from January 30 to February 20, 2008, for students to implement their software innovation. Students submit

  1. a working prototype,
  2. a development schedule,
  3. a business plan and
  4. a short video of their innovation, by February 20th, 2008.

The top 10 team move into North America Finals on April 22nd, 2008 where student groups present their innovation to a panel of judges along with their business plans. The top team from North America gets to go to France and compete in the World Wide Finals in Paris on July 1st, 2008.