ImagineCup 2011 - The competition is over, but the effects aren't

wednesday, the imaginecup competition finally came to its end. more than four hundred participants gathered in the david koch theater in lincoln center (new york city) for the award ceremony - each of them nervous, excited and happy for getting that far. the ceremony itself started with an intro describing imaginecup and the impact participants have on the world by participating and showcasing their projects.

john rivera lead the announcements, later joined by mayor bloomberg, of new york city, eva longoria and hal plotkin - advisor to the us secretary of education. the placements go as follows:

software design

1. team hermes - ireland
2. team note taker - united states
3. team oasys - jordan

game design (windows/xbox)

1. signum games - brazil
2. jubjub - thailand
3. wickedteam - czech republic

game design (web)

1. cellardoor - poland
2. signum fidei - philippines
3. quegee team - slovakia

game design (mobile)

1. geekologic - france
2. close world mobile - france
3. team dragon - united states

embedded design

1. nthucs - taiwan
2. harmonicare - china
3. endeavour_design - romania

digital media

1. m.n.a. - romania
2. brothers forever - oman
3. cottoncandy - taiwan

windows phone 7

1. homerun - korea
2. zipi zigi - korea
3. the lifelens project - united states

it challenge

1. jean-sebastien duchene - france
2. blazej matuszyk - poland
3. yunheng mong - singapore

orchard challenge

1. mp brun - denmark
2. virtual dreams - brazil
3. zveen zveen team - serbia

windows 7 touch challenge

1. india rose - france
2. _dreambender_ - indonesia
3. iuvo - japan

people's choice award

1. team rapture - bangladesh
   

each team got a check as well as some extra prizes from secondary sponsors. microsoft offered to take every winner of the first place to the build conference in anaheim, california - this coming september. also, every participant will get a windows phone (7.5 - mango) by fall, when the new version of the os officially hits the shelves (read: is bundled with new phones). what's even better than prizes is the fact that a lot of projects that were shown here in new york will take off as independent startups - some of them are already awaiting approval for funding.

it was a truly amazing experience - people from all over the world competing in providing the best solutions built around microsoft technologies that are contributing to a better world.

another novelty during this year's worldwide finals was the fact that there was an official microsoft-based media team, entirely composed of msps (microsoft student partners) from all over the world and led by michelle fleming. we tried to cover every single team, as well as the event as a whole. you can check more about what was going on during this past week by following these resources:

• imaginecup 2011 (flickr collection) - official
• imaginecup 2011 (flickr collection) - unofficial
• microsoft imaginecup press room
• imagine cup 2011: what hacking college is all about
• imagine cup 2011 (nyc) - post 1 - setup day
• 21 teams in the imagine cup 2011 worldwide finals
• microsoft ‘imagine cup’ finals: ballmer and students on cnn
• o.c. underdogs take on global microsoft contest
• student programmers compete at microsoft imagine cup finals in ny

the registration for the 2012 competition is now open, and you can sign up:

• for the us competition
• for the world competition