Invitation to Participate

It's that time of the year when we kick off our annual Imagine Cup South Africa finals. I invite you, your students and your department to participate in this year's Competition.

The entries are NOW open!

Imagine Cup 2008 - 2011 Theme

"Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today."

The competition requires faculty members to:

1.       Indicate interest to participate by entering the courses with programming projects planned as part of the curriculum, that would potentially answer the above theme.

2.       Later, submit the overall best performing project/s for the entries submitted to advance to the national finals in December 2009.

This year's competition will have the following categories and awards:

1. Software Design

(The winners of this category will represent South Africa at the Worldwide Finals in July 2010)

Special Awards in the Software Design Category

1.1 Interoperability Award

Designed to recognise the software application that best leverages out-of-the-box Microsoft technologies and blends them with other technologies to connect people, data, or diverse systems in a new way.

1.2 Design for Development

Challenges the teams to help solve one of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals by creating a software solution designed to meet the needs of end-users in developing and marginalised communities.

To be eligible, your team will need to conduct user-research in underserved communities and then use your findings to design a relevant software solution that can also be accessed from a basic mobile phone (ie phones with only voice and SMS capabilities).

2. Game Development

 (All competitors from this category will be encouraged to enter the online elimination rounds for the July 2010 Worldwide finals where they will stand a chance of joining the SD Team at the world finals.)

3. Development

This category is designed for beginner-developers and to encourage new entrants into the competition.

4. Ancillary Awards

To recognise special efforts by student teams and faculty members, we have the following ancillary awards:

1.       Rookie of the year - recognises the first-time entry of a University and/or department

2.       Women in IT - recognises an all-female student team

3.       Technology Voorsprung - recognises a faculty member who show thought-leadership in terms of usage of new and advanced technology

4.       Live Wire - recognises a faculty member  who has submitted the most entries across the various categories.

For more information on these categories, the requirements and judging criteria (the winners prizes will be published at a later date), please visit: www.imaginecup.co.za

To submit your entry, please click on the button below to register:

We look forward to working with you and your students on this year's competition and seeing you at the national finals event!

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