2014 Imagine cup: Young Techies, This is For You!

Microsoft Incorporated has begun search for best technology students in Nigeria to participate in its 2014 annual Imagine Cup student technology competition aimed at encouraging students to create imaginative technology solutions that can solve some of the world’s toughest problems.

Now in its twelfth year, the competition has grown to become the world’s global student technology competition with more than 1.65 million students from more than 190 countries having participated in the Microsoft Imagine Cup annual competition from inception.

Who can apply: student who is sixteen years or older as of 10 September 2013 and would be enrolled as a student of a University at any time between 1 January 2013 and 31 July 2014 is eligible to compete for the competition.

Requirements: To register for this year’s competition, the software giant will focus on three main competitions: Games, Innovation, and World Citizenship.

A team is made up to four eligible students and a mentor, who advises on the teams’ project. Each competing team will make an original technology project from start to fi nish: come up with a great idea, make a plan, build a project, and submit it to Imagine Cup.  It can be either purely software or a combination of software and hardware. It needs to use either: Windows, Windows Phone, or Windows Azure.

Important dates (Nigeria): The National Finals selects the best teams from Nigeria who then enter the World Semifinals. The very best of teams at the World Semi-fi nals in-turn wins a trip to Seattle in July 2014 for the Imagine Cup World Finals.

To accommodate the anticipated number of entries the national finals will hold in Lagos on April 24th 2014 while the Worldwide Finals, previously hosted in Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Korea, France, Egypt, Poland, USA, Australia and Russia goes back home to Seattle, USA in July 2014.

Deadline: 12.00am, April 10th, 2014.

What Do you stand to gain: Aside from the recognition from competing on the world stage at the technology competition, participants in Imagine Cup stand to win cash prizes and grants.

Interested?: Register for the competition on http://www.imaginecup. com/ and follow up with news and updates about the competition on Imagine Cup Blog.