Aus to host Microsoft's Imagine Cup 2012
Australia has been chosen to host next year's Microsoft Imagine Cup, where contestants around the world compete to find answers to "the world's toughest problems" and then use software and technology to implement their ideas.
Peter Garrett and finalists (Credit: Microsoft)
It's the first time Australia has hosted the Imagine Cup and it will be the event's tenth anniversary. It will be held in Sydney in July where 400 students are set to compete. Australia won the cup in 2008.
This year's worldwide finals will be held in New York in July. Over 300,000 students registered for the competition from more than 100 countries. Education Minister Peter Garrett, Young Australian of the Year and yachtswoman Jessica Watson, and renowned inventor Fiona Wood opened the Australian national finals, which will decide which one of the five teams will represent Australia in New York.
The five teams are from the University of Melbourne, Queensland University of Technology, University of Canberra and the Australian National University. Their projects have to do with sensors to monitor maternity health, games to help educate people about health, helping handicapped people to type using the power of thought, and communicating during disasters using social networks and phones.
The winning team will be announced tomorrow.
Garrett encouraged students to be involved in next year's contest.
"I encourage Australian students to get involved in Microsoft's Imagine Cup 2012, using software and technology to help improve the world we live in," he said.
Jessica Watson (Credit: Microsoft)
Pip Marlow, managing director of Microsoft Australia, said, "The Imagine Cup is all about harnessing the power of 'what if'. Every discovery, every invention and all exploration is based on a willingness to imagine and a unwavering desire to seek out answers.
"Imagination and ideas have the power to solve problems, but, in a modern, digital society, technology is now a great enabler. Australia is a natural choice for the worldwide finals — it lives and breathes the values of the Imagine Cup — innovation and inventiveness; collaborative citizenship and entrepreneurialism; optimism and a strong belief in a better future enabled by technology."
The University of Melbourne's Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES) said that Australia's hosting of the cup was timely, giving students the possibility to start thinking about what a National Broadband Network future might be like.
"High-speed broadband networks offer an incredible platform for innovation. The Imagine Cup will help spur innovation by bringing together the best and brightest students from around the world to work on the types of broadband applications and services that super-fast broadband networks of the future will deliver," said Dr Kate Cornick, executive director of IBES.