5 things you need to know if you're participating in a developer competition

It is not the first year that we have held the Imagine Cup competition. IC is a system of international competitions for technical students. The nearest acceptance of applications for participation in the main competition of software projects is closed on February 15, and there are already a lot of questions about it. In the topic, I will try to explain why these competitions for students are needed at all, what exactly they help with in life, what needs to be done to win and what mistakes participants most often make.

About the contest as a whole

Imagine Cup is the largest competition in the world in the field of IT and programming, which is held this year for the tenth time. The usual number of participants is about 300 thousand people from 70 countries. Three Russian teams entered the international finals last year in New York; in 2008, the Russian RedDevils team took first place in the Project Hoshimi category, in 2009 - Viva took second place in Software Design, in 2010 - Robonyanya was put in second place in Embedded Development.

The first tip is to download brochures describing past projects and watch recordings of successful projects (finalists of the Software Design international stage: Jordan , New Zealand , USA , China , Ireland and Romania ) to better understand the essence of the competition and appreciate the diversity of projects. (If something seems complicated to you, do not worry, everything always begins with small steps - application, team gathering and the first prototypes.)
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As part of the competition, various contests are held: this could be a development for a specific technology (for example, projects using Kinect, game development or mobile application development). The main competition is software projects where teams of students or graduate students compete.

What do you need to participate in the main competition?

1. Come up with the idea of ​​any software product that uses Microsoft technology. This may seem to be a hard limitation, but in reality this is not the case - the requirements for MS technologies are quite loyal and provide a wide choice, and you can always additionally use other technologies you need in your project. For example, you can write software for any mobile platform, where the backend is spinning on one of the Microsoft solutions.

2. Assemble a team of up to 4 students and a supervisor. A teacher, a graduate student, or an outsider often plays the role of a leader - he does not have to work in the education system. You can create a group without a leader.

3. Apply with this idea for a contest. This year you need to do it quickly - there are only a few days left before the competition. The application itself should contain just a general text description of the idea (with the architecture of the software solution). The prototype and presentation will be needed only in a month, that is, even if you first heard about the competition, you can participate.

Where to see the entire list of contests and deadlines for applications

On the official website of the competition www.imaginecup.com in the COMPETE section, all competitions are presented with detailed formal rules in English. Most contests are also written on the Microsoft student blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/rustudents).

How to apply

The theme of the competition is “Imagine a world in which technology helps to solve the most complicated problems of our time”. You can focus on the so-called. Millennium Goals proposed by the UN, but not necessarily. You can offer a solution to a global problem, as well as an important local one that is relevant for a relatively small group of people.

Second tip : Imagine Cup is not a start-up competition, although if your project has commercialization plans, this is also good. The essence of the competition is to show that you can “squeeze” out of technology in real life (you can consider it as a proof of concept ), and not to make a business out of it (although I repeat, if it can be done, it’s good - you will have an additional incentive). Turning to the list of winners - last year, for example, there was a project where, with the help of Kinect and augmented reality, the user was helped to fold origami. Time will tell what will come of this in the future, but today it’s rather a PoC of technological capability.

You can apply for this contest until February 15, for other thematic ones there are a couple more weeks to think about.

What will happen next?

Further places of the regional finals will be determined. If from your city comes immediately with a dozen applications - the jury will gather on the spot. If one application is submitted from the city, this does not mean an automatic regional victory - an invitation will be sent to another region. Presumably, judging by the dynamics of receipt of applications, this year it will be Moscow, St. Petersburg, Saratov, Tomsk, Perm. Similarly, it will be possible to say after February 15th.

After that - the final in Moscow. There are regional winners. From the final of the country, the team goes to the international final, which takes place every year in a new place. This time he will be in Sydney.

What do you need to pass the regional final?

The third tip : do not invest 100% of the effort in the prototype. Here you can see the project evaluation criteria. Please note that basically three things are evaluated (as in a real business): competent architecture, presentation skills, and an idea. From the 20 minutes of the presentation, the prototype will be shown 5-7 minutes: the rest of the time will be devoted to the description of the need for such a solution and the detailed architecture.

Projects with a certain wow component are winning in the main: perhaps not the most technologically advanced of all, but definitely bringing something new and useful to our reality.

Do I need to participate at all?

Fourth advice : if there is any idea at all - yes, it is imperative to participate. In fact, filling out an application with all the details takes no more than half an hour, that is, you can assemble a team in a day and state the idea. Importantly, this is why: firstly, many participants get an excellent CV entry: it is quoted both in Microsoft and in other software companies. Secondly, the competition is a real communication with people who understand the needs of the sphere: here you can make business contacts. Thirdly, the competition teaches teamwork: after it you can easily take the same team for a commercial project. There are examples of such cases after the competition, when projects were implemented: for example, in 2009, a project on forecasting the development of fires took a good position, it was later implemented in practice.

What ideas are more likely to succeed?

In past years, the standard approach has been to look at the UN Millennium Task List (see the link above). In almost every competition there are some projects related to medicine and something social: such projects are traditionally a little better perceived. However, again, the main thing in the idea is the ability to show some small magic that makes life easier by technology.

Where should i write?

The fifth tip : if you have questions, it’s not too late to come to Imagine Cup Student Camp in St. Petersburg , a similar event in Moscow has already passed), you can recruit a team there and find ideas. Different answers to subtle questions are in the question-answer recording of the virtual session available here (http://www.techdays.ru/videos/4118.html). Or ask questions here, or, if you are just reading, on Twitter - my colleague Dmitry Soshnikov .