Supported by its strategic partners, and in cooperation with Knowledge Oman, Microsoft will organise a road show to various universities across the Sultanate to give students the chance to learn more about Imagine Cup and how they can participate in this worldwide annual competition.
The Microsoft Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition. Over the past ten years, more than 1.65 million students from more than 190 countries have participated in the Imagine Cup.
“Imagine Cup competition is the first step in a lifelong journey for a young entrepreneur, inventor, designer, developer or innovator,” during the strategic partnerships signing ceremony, Sheikh Saif Hilal Al Hosni, Business Development Manager for Microsoft Oman said.
“With this 11th session of Imagine Cup competition, we aim at inspiring more students from all academic backgrounds to collaborate on applications and seize opportunities to impact the Omani community as well as the world.”
“We strongly believe in the potential of our youth, and we thank Microsoft for presenting them with such a unique opportunity to challenge themselves, achieve their ambitions and represent the Sultanate internationally. Our collaboration comes as part of our continuous efforts to help support and develop Omani youth skills and innovation in IT; we are keen to promote, inspire, empower and support the Sultanate’s future generation and help them succeed,” Dr. Salim Al Ruzaiqi, CEO of ITA, said.
“We are pleased to support Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Competition for another session in Oman, and we are excited to witness the hype this initiative creates within the young community in the Sultanate,” Dr. Amer Al Rawas, Chief Executive Officer for Omantel, said.
“This collaboration comes in line with our commitment to supporting opportunities that help young Omanis flourish into the leaders of tomorrow.”
More than 300 students partook in last year’s session of Imagine Cup Competition in Oman; the National winner was Team Grawesome from Sultan Qaboos University. The winning project “Blood it” is a system that monitors the blood supply in a blood bank. In case of shortage in a specific blood type, or in case of emergency, a GPS system locates the nearest registered donors and automatically sends an SMS. The viable donor has to acknowledge the SMS and confirm their availability to donate; otherwise, the next in line donor will be contacted. The system takes into account the blood units needed and contact enough donors accordingly.
“Imagine cup was an important experience for us as programmers. In Sydney we met a huge number of students and were introduced to great ideas; we also befriended some participants. Our participation in Imagine Cup has opened the door for many opportunities, and now we are working to establish our own business and looking forward to participating in Imagine Cup 2013,” commenting on their participation in Microsoft Imagine Cup 2012, Team Grawesome said.
To inspire more students globally and encourage a wider variety of aspiring innovators to participate, Microsoft has redesigned Imagine Cup around three new core competitions built on the core elements that have been most popular with students in the past 10 years — social impact and gaming — while expanding the competition’s focus on innovation and entrepreneurship.
The first place prizes in the Worldwide Finals for World Citizenship, Games and Innovation will each be US$50,000.
Students interested in signing up for Imagine Cup 2013 may register on the website, http://www.imaginecup.com.