Imagine Cup 2017 UK National Winners
The Imagine Cup is an annual competition that empowers the next generation of student developers and aspiring entrepreneurs from across the globe, to use their creativity, passion and knowledge to create applications that shape how we live, work and play. Every year tens of thousands of students from across the globe compete for cash, travel and prizes and for the honour of taking home the Imagine Cup.
Judges
-Clare Barclay: Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft UK
-Warwick Hill: CEO in Residence, Microsoft Accelerator
-Kenji Takeda: Director of Azure for Research, MSR
-Guy Richards: Xbox Account Manager, Microsoft EMEA
-Dave Coplin: Principle Tech Evangelist, Microsoft UK
-Nadav Rosenberg: Partner, Entrepreneur First
Our judges for the day represented a cross-section of business areas, both internally and externally. The judges were looking for strong technical applications that had real world business viability.
The Event
We began with an agenda tailored around getting the finalists inspired by previous Imagine Cup contestants that went onto form start-ups. Riham, co-founder of MeVitae’s quote of the day was “we wouldn’t be here if it wasn't for the Imagine Cup.” Other sessions included Steph Georgiou and Warwick Hill’s Microsoft Start Up and Accelerator story, on how teams can continue to grow with Microsoft, under programmes such as BizSpark and MS Ventures. Holly Knower, CEO of NACUE also launched the MentorME platform in partnership with Microsoft,.
This will give entrepreneurial students access to Microsoft experts across the business. Each team was also matched with a Microsoft Accelerator mentor prior to the UK Finals, with Skype sessions in the run up to the competition and a face to face session on the day. We also distributed our student to start up infographic which aims to provide a starting point for aspiring student entrepreneurs
First Place
University: Imperial College London
Team Donaco
Team members:
Aiming to revolutionise the donation industry by facilitating the relationship between charities and donors. Donaco aims to connect donors with charities in context of things they are reading and connecting with online, streamlining the process and making it easier.
Second Place
University: University College London
Team SEAT
Team members:
This team produced a very innovative tool that aims to improve the learning and teaching experience in programming courses.
Joint Third Place: Pocket Sized Hands & KSF.LLC
University: Abertay University
Team Pocket Sizes Hands
Team members:
Honeypot Espionage is an online VR multiplayer shooter, focused on stealth combat. Acting as a Spy, the user is completely invisible when stationery, but becomes visible when there is movement.
University: University of Oxford
Team Root KSF.LLC
Team members:
Keisuke brought us the world's first remote and interactive farming platform for urban consumer, a truly innovative solution for farming.
John Brengman Award for Innovation.
Finally, I wanted to say a special thank you to Sarah and Charlotte Brengman, who travelled down from Edinburgh to present the ‘John Brengman Award for Imagination, Inspiration and Innovation’ on the day. Charlotte did a wonderful job in presenting KSF.LLC with the award which honoured the late John Brengman for his incredible work with Microsoft, including the Imagine Cup and Channel 9.
Congratulations to all of the teams for getting to this stage of the competition and for their ground-breaking work to deliver innovation across a wide variety of areas.
All of our winners will be going onto the worldwide finals in Seattle this July and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next from our winners and the finalists.
In developing this strategy we believe hope to enable all teams, regardless of whether they make the finals, to continually evolve as entrepreneurs and have Microsoft be a part of that journey.