Member Article

North East Students Invited To Change The World

Sunderland Software City is giving the region’s students a unique opportunity to demonstrate their software and design skills to the world in the regional heat of the 2013 Microsoft Imagine Cup competition.

The Imagine Cup is an international competition where teams of students and recent graduates from around the globe develop, test, and build their ideas into applications that can help solve some of the world’s toughest problems, such as poverty, hunger, inequality and environmental sustainability, through the use of innovative Microsoft tools and technology.

As well as the opportunity to develop their ideas with the help of some of the world’s most experienced developers, finalists will be flown to St Petersburg, Russia, for the competitions global finals in July 2013 and be in with the chance of winning cash prizes to develop their applications further.

Over the past ten years, 1.65 million students from more than 190 countries have participated in the competition. Last year’s theme, ’Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems’ saw entries that included projects to reduce the number of road traffic deaths, applications to help the partially sighted and a game which raises awareness of the dangers of forest fires.

David Dunn, Chief Executive Officer of Sunderland Software City said: “The software sector in the North East is growing rapidly and it is our mission to make the region synonymous with global software innovation.

“The software industry will only continue to grow providing enough local talent comes into the industry and projects like the Imagine Cup are just one of the ways we’re encouraging local young people to think seriously about careers in software.

“We’ve never ceased to be amazed at the innovative ideas young people have come up with when we have challenged them at events like this in the past, and it’s exciting to think that these events could be the very start of the North East’s next software success story”

This year’s competition theme is ’All dreams are now welcome’ and prospective teams are being invited to sign up and submit their ideas. The competition is open to students aged 16 years and above, and those who have graduated within the last year.

Sunderland Software City is holding taster sessions where interested parties can find out more about The Imagine Cup and how to submit their ideas. The sessions are taking place on Monday 26th November at Teesside University between 6pm-8pm and onTuesday 27th November at Gateshead College between 6pm-8pm.

These sessions will be followed by an Ideas Day on the 8th December where teams can get together to develop projects with the help of experienced mentors. Further details of the Ideas Day will be provided at the taster sessions.

For more information please visit www.imaginecupnortheast.co.uk, follow on twitter @ImagineCupNE or like facebook.com/imaginecupnortheast.

The Sunderland Software City project is part financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), managed by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Amy Watson .