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.

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.

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)

Your dream PC, for free?

I have no idea of what part of my readership are actually students, but if you're one of them (or know any), this post is for you.

Do want a new, top of the line PC that will satisfy your academic and leisure needs?

You have plenty of ideas of what the perfect hardware looks like, but don't have the time or money to build it yourself?

Well, Max, from Channel 8, is building a PC and is looking for student input by writing about the hardware he is considering and starting a discussion.

Now, why would you care? Well, for starters, if you know something about hardware, you might want to share your knowledge with the student community that is forming around Channel 8. And in any case, if you let us pick your brain, the PC can be yours!

Max is going to give away the PC once it's built by selecting a random person who contributed to the discussion.

I'm sure you have something to say, so you take a look at Channel 8 and share your ideas. We are currently discussing the following parts:

• Part I: The Case
• Part II: The CPU

Nothing on TV? Switch to Channel 8!

I don't know when this went online because I've been mostly disconnected lately, with the moving and all, so I haven't been able to keep up with the blogosphere, but still I would like to present you a new Microsoft site.

First, do you know about Channel 9 and Channel 10?

Channel 9 was one of Microsoft's first initiatives to open up to the general public. Today it's a website where developers, IT pros and other geeks can learn everything about past, present and future Microsoft technologies via videos, forums, blogs, etc.

Given Channel 9's success, another website of the same kind was created: Channel 10. Channel 10 follows the same principles, but it isn't necessarily as technical. It's branded for "technology enthusiasts."

And now, after 9 and 10, Microsoft has created a new website: I'm talking about Channel 8.

Channel 8 is for students.

The site will obviously concern technology, as do the other two channels (this is Microsoft after all), but all content will be created with students in mind: what students need, what students want, etc. Given the community-oriented nature of the site, it should be easy to stay on target.

You can take a look at the video presentation by Joe Wilson, Director of Academic Initiatives at Microsoft, and then start talking about it to your friends. Hopefully, content will be flowing soon and this site will be as much a success as its two predecessors.

So enjoy the site's cool looks for now and go back often to see how it gets better and better.