Windows Embedded Challenge ROCKS!

I know I said I'd be blogging on the ce_base team blog now, but I figured my personal blog is a better place for this one as it's more personal in nature.  I just finished two days of serving as a judge for the Windows Embedded Student Challenge.  I had a most wonderful time.  The quality of the work, the innovation, and the energy of the students were simply amazing.  What a diversity of projects from a diverse cross-section of the world!  How energizing to see people take the work I do and build such impressive systems on top of it!  The only disappointing part of the competition was that I didn't have a chance to see all 30 projects.

I also feel somewhat emotional about the event because it was heartbreaking to give some of these teams such disappointments.  Everyone has worked so hard and cares so much.  So to those teams out there who might read this, I want to say that just because you weren't chosen doesn't mean we didn't like your projects, or think that they could become successful products.  In some cases we had to eliminate teams because their projects just weren't 100% ready, or because we felt they didn't adequately describe important aspects of their project during their presentation.  It was clear in many cases that the teams intended to continue working on their projects, in an attempt to build a real commercial product.  I would encourage you all to continue following the dream.  If you want more feedback please do ask for it; we would be happy to help you understand what parts of the project were weak and how to improve on them for the future.

I loved meeting everyone.  Thank you for your hard work, and for sharing it with us.  I wish you all the best of luck, and hope to see you again!  (Maybe next year?)  Stay in touch, and I will see you online.  ;-)

Sue