“Creative students gain a lot of exposure and experience through such competitions on a national level.” – Gareth Gauci ICON’s Chief Technology Officer
ICON was once again present at the prestigious Imagine Cup event held this year at MCAST on 27th April 2012. Organised by IT giants Microsoft the Imagine Cup is an annual technology competition open to students from a variety of countries in which they come together to propose an IT programme with the aim of solving one of the world’s toughest problems. Represented by Chief Technology Officer Mr Gareth Gauci ICON was once again on Malta’s Imagine Cup judging panel.
The judges were invited by Microsoft to be part of a panel representing the very best of IT professionals in the local market. The chosen winning team would go on to represent Malta in a worldwide competition to be held in Sydney Australia in July. With four teams of students all attending MCAST or the University of Malta competing against each other to represent Malta the stakes were high and each team offered initiatives to benefit the world.
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| ICON’s Chief Technical Officer Gareth Gauci (Second from left) |
With the students required to use their imagination and drive to compete against other teams worldwide the Maltese students came up with innovative ideas to help facilitate the education process for those less fortunate. Divided into three categories the teams had to choose between competing on Software Design Game Design or Phone Development. The students were also presented with the added option of signing up to Kinect Fun Labs Windows Metro Style App Windows Azure or Windows Phone Challenges.
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| Team Kick presenting their programme for the visually impaired |
Team Daskalos proposed a programme that provides a multi-sensory learning environment whereby a team of volunteers will be able to teach those who cannot afford to pay for tuition or books. Team Gozo offered a scheduling system created to allocate time for meetings and other services. Team Kick focused on creating a programme implementing tools such as a planner and diary email checker timetable reader and an e-book/notes reader for the visually impaired.
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| Malta’s representatives at Microsoft’s Imagine C |