Microsoft has announced two new individual challenges for the upcoming Imagine Cup 2012. These two new challenges will take place on the Windows Phone and the Windows Azure platforms.
The challenge process will focus on allowing students to work through the entire development cycle, from concept to solution. Students are encourage to compete in as many competitions as they would like and there is no limit on creativity.
The Windows Phone challenge, which is sponsored by Nokia, encourages students to create socially conscious apps that will be judged on several factors. From the Imagine Cup blog:
"The Windows Phone Challenge sponsored by Nokia invites students to develop socially conscious apps that will be judged on functionality, utility and user delight. Last year, Windows Phone was the most frequent technology used among Imagine Cup students: nearly half of the competing teams at the Worldwide Finals integrated mobile elements to their projects. Will this year’s Challenge prove to be bigger and stronger that the last? We certainly hope so!"
The Windows Azure challenge will be targeted, as you would expect, towards cloud computing:
"Cloud computing is changing the face of technology. More than 30 percent of teams at the Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals integrated Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing service, into their technology designs. By using the cloud, Imagine Cup students have already changed the way education technology functions in the classroom, proven that social media can help lessen our carbon footprints, and created systems to keep medical records more organized. Students who participate in the Windows Azure Challenge will be at the forefront of how the cloud is transforming the way we live and work."
The Imagine Cup is a fantastic way for Microsoft to foster creative thinking in our future generation that will one day be creating the technologies of tomorrow. For more information, visit the Windows Azure and Windows Phone Challenge pages