Dear all,

It’s amazing how ImagineCup is a worldwide success! In Portugal we don’t have a culture that is willing to take the risk of wining. However ImagineCup is growing year after year and now there are new incentives: Achievement Awards.

The Achievement Awards have three categories:

Software Design Interoperability Award

This exciting new award is designed to recognize the software solution 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. The ability to build technical bridges and blend technologies from different vendors has great value in the industry. The experience you gain by participating in this challenge will help you and teammates build important technical skills that are highly valued in the job market

Software Design Windows Live Award

The Windows Live Award is a special award designed to recognize the software design solution that makes the best use of the Windows Live platform.  
The Windows Live platform can enhance your solutions by enabling you to add rich media, communications, community, and mapping to your Web-based applications. There are many different ways to integrate the Windows Live Platform - APIs (SOAP, REST, etc.) and controls - choose the one that best fits your skills and solution!  Each capability has several underlying technologies you can use across many platforms. For example:

If you require authentication for your Web site, you may choose to use Windows Live ID web authentication.
If end-users of your solution require real-time communication via instant messaging, you may choose to use one of the many programmability options of Windows Live Messenger.

You aren’t required to use all of these capabilities; however, entries in the Windows Live Award will be judged in part on their ability to integrate these capabilities in an innovative way.  Should you accept the challenge, your team will benefit from not only the masses of data accessible via Windows Live Services (e.g. 14 petabytes of mapping) but also the reach of the Windows Live network with approx 400 million active users. To access these resources, go to http://dev.live.com.

Interface Design Accessibility Award

The Accessible Technology Award is designed to recognize the user interface solution that best leverages the capabilities of Microsoft products and blends them with other technologies to connect people, data, or diverse systems in a new way.

Accessible Technology is technology that can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities, temporary difficulties, or the desire to customize their interactions with technology:

The difficulties and impairments that impact a person’s ability to use technology use are: vision, dexterity, learning, hearing, language and communication, and aging-related difficulties.
The need for accessible technology can also stem from temporary physical conditions, such as while recovering from shoulder surgery, in which case the person needs alternatives to the mouse and keyboard.
Some people need to customize how they access technology due to environmental conditions or their preferences. For example, a person using a workstation in a loud factory will not be able to use sounds, and will need alternative, visual cues instead.

Given these scenarios, many people will use accessible technology at one point or another. A 2004 study commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by Forrester Research found that 57% of U.S. adult computer users are likely or very likely to benefit from accessible technology.

As the world population ages, accessibility needs will increase. People with physical and cognitive impairments represent a very diverse group. They are found in all walks of life, employed in all fields, and studying many different subjects. These users, like all end users, want to use PCs, mobile devices, the Internet, and physical devices - and expect them to work.

I really love the Interoperability Award!!! I love the subject…