Imagine Cup 2014: Microsoft advice to tech students.

Like the FIFA World Cup held in Brazil in June, Microsoft 2014 Imagine Cup successfully ended last month in Seattle, Washington,USA, with a call to technology students to turn their innovative ideas into reality.



The software contest had brought together no fewer than 125 talented technology students from 34 countries around the world to showcase their talents.

The premier technology programme and competitionn had provided opportunities for student technologists to change the world with their innovative ideas.
Over the past 12 years, the event has empowered more than 1.7 million students worldwide to do more and achieve more through technology.
Challenge of the students:
However, having been monitoring closely students’ participation at the global finals of the contest in many countries for several years, and as a Technology Journalist who is passionate about tech start-ups, turning ideas into reality appears to be major challenge for most participants after global showcase.
It would be recalled that STEVE Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft, at the 2011 edition of the competition held in New York, USA, had advised participants at the contest to put their ideas into reality.
Ideas matter:
His words: “Ideas matter, sometimes people get all caught up with the speed, agility and execution, which is certainly vital, but part of the reason you’re here isn’t just because you worked really hard and you did some really good programming; it’s because you had an idea that somebody thought mattered. In our business, ideas matter”.
Contest empowers students:
“Imagine Cup empowers students to hack tough problems, while learning and building off the work of others. Student developers play a huge role in bringing new technologies to life in a mobile-first, cloud-first world. Congratulations to all the competitors for their hard work and creativity.” Satya Nadella, the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, told the students at the Imagine Cup World Championship ceremony where Team Eyenaemia of Australia in the World Citizenship Competition emerged as the overall winner 2014 Imagine Cup.
Code as a common language:
For the 34 teams that participated in the finals, code was not just the way they created their projects, but a common and essential language.
Being a good outing and showcase, after narrating their experiences at the world stage, at a welcome reception last week in Lagos, one thing was clear, there were positive signals that the software code warriors would turn their ideas into reality.
Taking solution to the next level:
Narrating their experience, Adefioye Temidayo, the Team spokesperson told Microsoft officials at a welcome reception for the Team held in Lagos last week they were determined to take their solution to the next level.
We will bring our solution to life:
With the digital tools provided by the National Information Technology Development Agency, (NITDA), he assured that; ” We want to bring our solution to life. From idea to reality, we want to use it to solve local problems.
“The judges during live presentations and hand-on judging were impressed with our solution, CATARA, which serves the purpose of drastically reducing the rate at which cataract causes total blindness in humans” .

culled from here