SUPINFO wins special prize at Imagine Cup 2008

The award ceremony of imagine Cup 2008 took place on Tuesday, July 8th in the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. SUPINFO teams were competing in two different categories: Game Development and Software Design.

Traditionally, prizes are handed out to the three first places in each of the nine categories of the competition. However, this year many special prizes were also awarded. One of these, an invitation to participate in the “BT Innovation Accelerator” program was won by Régis Hanol and Gauthier Chanliau–SUPINFO Languedoc Roussillon in Montpellier, Sébastien Warin–SUPINFO Nord-Pas de Calais in Lille and  Jean-Noël Gauthier–Ecole des Gobelins, of team Well’k Home.

The winners of this program, growth catalyst for innovative projects, are invited to work directly with the BT teams that will help them take their student project and transform it into a business plan. For them, Imagine Cup is only the beginning of the adventure!
I would also like to congratulate Frédéric Pedro, Anthony Chen Kuang Piao and Nicolas Gryman – SUPINFO Ile de France, and Maximilien Paitel – SUPINFO UK of the ECOThink team, who were able to distinguish themselves among 200 000 competitors and made it to the world finals with a few other privileged teams.

Finally, I’d like to encourage all students to follow these exemplary teams by registering today for the next edition of the competition, the world finals of which will take place in Cairo and Alexandria, in Egypt. The theme will be “Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today.” Students will be asked to create software solutions that are aligned to one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). More information about the MDGs can be found at http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals.

Registration for Imagine Cup 2009 is already open. You’ll find more information at http://www.imaginecup.com.

Imagine Cup: Two Steps Away from the Podium!

It has been two days since students from all over the world got to Paris to participate in the Imagine Cup 2008 finals and we just got the first intermediate results:

From 50 teams, the list of competitors in the Software Design category has been brought down to only 12 and our Well’k Home team, of Régis Hanol, Gauthier Chanliau and Sébastien Warin (SUPINFO) and Jean Noël Gauthier (Gobelins) is among them!

There's still plenty of work to do before the final results are revealed on Tuesday, so I wish plenty of luck to the Well’k Home team as well as ECOThink (Game Development) for the rest of the competition. I'll keep you updated on how our teams move forward and will post pictures from the podium as soon as I have them.

Imagine Cup 2008, here I come!

It's July 3rd and the Imagine Cup World Finals start today!

I'm not a finalist this year—but only because I didn't participate at all ;) Still, after being at last year's finals in Korea, I just couldn't stay away. I needed a plan.

So here I am in Paris, the competition is taking place in my own back yard and, even though some Microsoft Student Partners are invited to come visit for a couple of hours, I needed to be there all week. Well, it seems that if you want something strong enough (and work hard to get it) the universe helps: I'll be present from July 3rd through 8th at the Imagine Cup 2008 finals!

What am I going to be doing there?

Well, first, there are two teams I've been kind of coaching for the last few months, SmartCooking and ECOThink. I'll be supporting them the best I can. Even though, at this stage, everything is mostly up to them.

Second, I'll be covering the event with Channel 8! That's right, for a whole week you'll be getting exclusive insider information both on the Channel 8 site and, of course, right here. Did I show you my badge?

Come back soon and often for more information about the teams, the competition, the venues, the city, etc. ;)

6 - 54

No, these are not lottery or horse numbers, it's the order in which the teams from SUPINFO that are going to the Imagine Cup finals next week in Paris!

There are two kinds of competitions going on next week:

• Software design, embedded design and game development, in which teams must basically sell a finished product to judges from different countries and backgrounds;
• The rest, in which teams have 24-36 hours to create something new from scratch (that's what I had to do last year).

6 will be the position of ECOThink, our Game Development team.

54 will be the position of Smart Cooking, our Software Design team.

Watch Max, Rogerio and Tim as they draw the teams and they explain what's going to happen.

Imagine Cup 2008 Worldwide Finals Drawing

Oh, by the way, did I already mention I'll be covering the finals? More on that soon ;)

2nd SUPINFO Team in Imagine Cup World Finals

After the French Final which took place last week, where we learnt that our own Well K’Home team qualified for the finals of the Software Development category, we received today in a more discrete but not less important manner the results for all the other categories. I am therefore glad to announce that a second SUPINFO team has qualified for the worldwide finals!

I’m talking about the ECOThink team composed of Frédéric Pedro, Anthony Chen Kuang Piao and Nicolas Gryman – SUPINFO Ile de France, and Maximilien Paitel – SUPINFO UK, who will be representing the colors of SUPINFO and France in the Game Development category.

Only 6 out of the hundred or so teams that participated worldwide have the privilege to attain this final round that will take place from July 3 to 8 in Paris. I therefore congratulate this team for their exceptional work and this well deserved reward.

It is also thanks to these two teams that SUPINFO will be the French school sending the most students to these “Olympic Games” of Computer Science.

I’d like to thank teams Well K’Home and ECOThink once more, but also all the other participants in all the other categories for their efforts.

I hope that those for whom the adventure stops here were able to take advantage of it and will retry the experience next year. To our two finalist teams, I wish them the best of luck for the next stage and would like to remind them that they have our full support until the end.

SUPINFO represented in the Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals

Last night took place the French finals of the Software Design category of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup. Seven finalists, two of which came from SUPINFO, were competing for the first place that would allow them to represent their school’s and their country’s colors in the worldwide finals that will take place from July 3 to 8 in Paris, France.

It was before notably Eric Boustouller–General Manager of Microsoft France, Jean-Louis Missika–deputy of the Mayor of Paris, in charge of innovation, research and universities, and Chantal Jouanno–President of the French Environment and Energy Management Agency, but also our President, Alick Mouriesse, that this much desired first place was attributed to our own Smart Cooking team, composed of Régis Hanol and Gauthier Chanliau–SUPINFO Montpellier, Sébastien Warin–SUPINFO Lille, and Jean-Noël Gauthier–Gobelins.

Months of hard work have borne fruit, even if the show is far from being over. These four students must still step up to their biggest challenge during the first week of July, when they will have to convince judges from around the world that their project is the most relevant from a technological, economic and environmental (this is the competition’s theme this year) point of view, amongst the fifty other countries participating in the international finals.

I’d like to congratulate personally, but also on behalf of all of SUPINFO, Régis, Gauthier, Sébastien and Jean-Nöel for their victory!

I’d also like to congratulate Team Plastid, made of Sylvain Bruyère, Romain Léveillé and Steven Bailly-Maître–SUPINFO Toulouse, who managed, despite their young age, to qualify for the French finals. I wish them good luck in continuing their project and hope to see them on the podium next year.

Finally, last night only the Software Design category was at stake, however we have great teams still participating, especially in the categories of Embedded Design, Game Development, Project Hoshimi and IT Challenge. Some of these teams were there yesterday evening and were able to showcase their projects and benefit from the opinion and advise of visitors, including Alick and Olivier Comes. These teams have submitted their projects hoping to grab a place in the worldwide finals, however in these categories the competition is already taking place at the international level. We will therefore know the definitive list of SUPINFO finalists by the end of the month.

Once again, on behalf of SUPINFO, I wish luck to all the teams who are still competing and would like to congratulate and thank Régis, Gauthier and Sébastien for all their work.

Great people meet at La Sorbonne

A few weeks ago I posted the pictures of the Imagine Cup conference that took place in Paris and during which I had the opportunity to interview Bill Gates.

An event like that was of course filmed and now the videos are also available for online viewing and for download from the web site of Microsoft France.

There are six videos:

• French (well, French and Costa Rican :P) finalists from 2007 (French)
• Bernard Charlès, CEO Dassault Systèmes (French)
• Ora Ito, Designer (French)
• Andrew Herbert, Microsoft Research Cambridge (English)
• Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman (English)
• Q&A with Bill Gates (you can see me here again) (English)

Click on "Voir ..." to view the video online or "Télécharger" to download.

Have fun!

Photos with BillG

As usual these days, there were all sorts of cameras present at yesterday's activity. This is great because I of course couldn't take my own pictures. Here's a selection of pictures that I have received:

Yep, that's me, to his left first and then to his right.

And here are links I've received/found with pictures of the event. I'll be editing these as I find/get new ones:

• G-IT
• Photos by Séverin Ferrand
• Photos by Stéphane Rangaya
• Photos by Emmanuel de Taillac
• Photos by Maxime Gaillard
• Photos by Stéphane Rangaya
• Photos by Johanna Piou

A day of "firsts"

I'm exhausted!

Today was day of "firsts":

• First time in I can't remember how long that I wake up and it's still dark outside (yes, I know, what you're thinking. I'm not lazy, I just manage my time differently).
• First time I risk missing breakfast in a hotel because it's too early (I guess you're seeing a pattern here. It's just coincidence).
• First time I take a morning train in London to go down to Paris planning to come back up in the evening.
• First time I went to La Sorbonne and visited its main amphitheater.
• First time I'm asked to speak in front of so many people (although I'm not actually 100% of this one).
• And finally, the first time that I meet Bill Gates!

Since he was in the neighborhood, BillG dropped in La Sorbonne to demo Microsoft Surface and talk about Imagine Cup to a hall full of students. After all, this year's Imagine Cup finals will precisely take place in Paris.

I got to Gare du Nord at about 11:50 and had to be in La Sorbonne as close to noon as possible. I got there at about 12:45 because I had to go to my apartment first to change. Why was I changing? Well, because I was going to be onstage.

After a rushed rehearsal and discovering what I had to say and do onstage, I patiently waited with two other MSPs/French Imagine Cup finalists, Manon and Benjamin, for several hundred people to settle into the centuries-old main amphitheater of France's most famous university.

At about 14:30 (or at least I think it was that time, I wasn't really thinking about that by then...) everything started: Marc Jalabert, head of Microsoft France's DPE, gave an introductory speech and invited my friends and I to come onstage. We were asked a couple of questions about Imagine Cup and then sat down next to the other special guests: Bernard Charlès from Dassault Systèmes, Ora Ito and Andrew Herbert from MSR. In that order, the three guests gave their speeches.

After a couple of minutes of improvisation to make up for a slight delay, finally, the star guest arrived: Bill Gates. He gave a short speech and showed the "Bill's last day in Microsoft video". He also demoed Microsoft Surface, but that didn't go as well as expected. We'll blame the lighting.

Finally, it was time for our 15 minutes of glory. Manon, Benjamin and I went back onstage to join Marc and Bill for a Q&A session. We each got to ask two questions. After that, some pre-chosen students among the audience asked a question each and the afternoon was over. Or was it? We were rushed to a short photo shoot will Bill and then to a cocktail. The rest of the evening is much less interesting unless you're me, so I'll stop here.

I am now on a Eurostar heading back to London, actually suffering because there are no power outlets and (and here Windows went into hibernation because I ran out of battery)

Music in Seoul

There was one thing I loved about Seoul and it's that, wherever you were, if there was a little green near you, there was music to be heard. Gyongbokgung was not an exception. Indeed, I actually got to see the artists behind the music and one of them was glad to perform before the camera: