Manila, Philippines – January 24, 2017 – Filipino student innovators are once again called upon to be the pride of the country and bring home the prestigious Microsoft Imagine Cup to local shores.
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| Charles Justin Lim, Academic Specialist at Microsoft Philippines and 2015 Imagine Cup National Winner |
It was in 2010 during the Imagine Cup World Finals held in Warsaw, Poland when Team By Implicationfrom the Philippines last hoisted the Imagine Cup by besting hundreds of participants in the Game Design competition. Their game design called “Wildfire” talked about saving the world through social action and volunteerism, and was inspired by incidents that came as a result of the havoc wreaked by Typhoon Ketsana (called “Ondoy” in the Philippines).
The group, composed of students from the Ateneo de Manila University, namely Philip Cheang, Wilhansen Li, Rodrick Tan and Levi Tan-Ong, won for themselves US$25,000 but more importantly the title of Imagine Cup World Champions.
An opportunity for the next generation Filipino tech talents
Microsoft Philippines challenges today’s generation of student innovators to bring back pride to the Philippines by making it again to the world stages of the Imagine Cup just like By Implication of 2010, and what better time to bring back the distinction of being Imagine Cup Champions, as the Philippines will be the host country of the first ever Imagine Cup 2017 Asia-Pacific Regional Finals which will be held this coming April 2017, where National Winners from ten (10) different countries will be travelling here to compete for a slot in the Worldwide Finals.
It will also be doubly meaningful because the Philippines will host the 30th ASEAN Summit, where all eyes will be focused on the Philippines, an emerging powerhouse in the global political stage and an innovative player in the global technology and design sphere.
To apply, students should form a team composed of one (1) to three (3) students, register their teams in http://compete.imagine.
Imagine Cup on its 15th Year
The Imagine Cup is an annual global technology competition organized by Microsoft that aims to give young developers around the world the opportunity to acquire the technical and business skills they need to be successful outside school.
Now on its 15th year, Microsoft celebrates this significant milestone by doubling the top prize to a whopping $100,000 for the next Imagine Cup World Champions.
Microsoft also made some changes in the contest criteria to make it more interesting and technology-driven.
For the 2017 Imagine Cup competition, a greater emphasis will be placed on each project’s underlying technology, and will focus more on deep technology integration in fully formed apps, services, and games with the potential to be viable in the commercial marketplace.
How Does Imagine Cup Work?
Students are asked to create an original technology project from start to finish – from ideation and planning, to building the project and making it an actual product. In previous years, the teams compete in the Games, Innovation or World Citizenship categories; however, for 2017, all categories have been removed from the competition, allowing any big idea to be a qualified entry, with the only requirement being that the teams must integrate Microsoft Azure, Azure is Microsoft’s open, flexible, enterprise-grade cloud computing platform, into their solutions.
Students advance through various rounds of the competition either online or through in-person National Final events organized by Microsoft subsidiaries across the globe. This year, 11 countries will be sending their National Champions to the Asia-Pacific Finals, where the World Finalists teams are determined. Winners in this round will then travel to the Imagine Cup World Finals, where they compete for cash prizes, and once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
Microsoft Philippines has been holding the Imagine Cup: Philippines giving young brilliant people the opportunity to work with new and innovative tech tools to bring about their vision into reality. This year, Imagine Cup 2017: Philippines runs from January to April 2017 and is open to high school and college students from any course.
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