“Social, mobile, analytics and cloud can’t be looked at as distinct technology trends; they are facets of the same movement and an everyday reality for consumers and businesses alike,” said Craig Sowell, IBM VP of SmartCloud Marketing, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This means that businesses need to start looking at trends as one: cloud is the delivery, analytics is the unique insight, social is a shareable service, and mobile is the ubiquitous access.”
...| By PR Newswire | Article Rating: |
|
| December 4, 2012 12:00 PM EST | Reads: |
678 |
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- At the Social Innovation Summit today, Microsoft Corp. announced the winners of the second annual Microsoft Imagine Cup Grants program, a three-year, $3 million competitive grant program that provides students with funding and support to help transform their projects into social enterprises or nonprofits that will address a specific social issue. The Imagine Cup Grants program is part of the Microsoft YouthSpark initiative, which aims to create opportunities for 300 million youth during the next three years.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)
The grand prize grant of $100,000 was awarded to Team Graphmasters from Germany for its solution called nunav that reduces vehicle carbon emissions through an innovative navigation system. The second place grant of $75,000 went to Team StethoCloud from Australia, which developed a solution to diagnose childhood pneumonia. There were also grants of $50,000 to Team Vivid from Egypt, which built a mobile app to access medical records using the cloud; Team Cipher256 from Uganda for its mobile app and listening device to analyze fetal heart rates; and Team QuadSquad from Ukraine, which created a solution that transforms sign language into verbal communication. The teams used technologies including Windows 8, Windows Azure, Windows Phone, Bing Maps and more.
"The Imagine Cup Grants will help students evolve a great idea for addressing a societal issue into a real-world business," said Dan'l Lewin, corporate vice president, Strategic and Emerging Business Development, Microsoft. "These students have developed incredible approaches that show great potential for positive local impact. We are excited to offer financial and other support to help them transform these ideas into businesses with real-world impact."
The grant winners were among the finalists at the Imagine Cup 2012 Worldwide Finals, a global competition that invites students to develop a technology, create a business plan and gain a keen understanding of what they need to bring their concepts to market. The Imagine Cup Grants program takes the competition further, helping students turn their ideas into reality by creating a real business or nonprofit. As part of Microsoft YouthSpark, the Imagine Cup Grants program is one way Microsoft is helping young people pursue an education, find employment and foster entrepreneurship.
"The Imagine Cup was the catalyst for our team to create nunav," said Christian Bruggemann, Team Graphmasters. "Through the Imagine Cup Grants, Microsoft is giving us the opportunity to expand our project and bring it to market. As mobile phone adoption becomes more prevalent around the world, it presents a perfect way for nunav to help fight traffic and carbon emissions."
In addition to the cash awards, the grant packages include software, cloud computing services, solution provider support, premium Microsoft BizSpark account benefits and access to local resources such as Microsoft Innovation Centers. Microsoft will also connect grant recipients with its network of investors, nongovernmental organization partners and business partners and will work with the grant recipients to tailor individual support as needed depending on the progress each team has made so far with its project.
Imagine Cup Grants Award Winners
- Team Graphmasters, Germany. Christian Bruggemann, Sebastian Heise and Iulian Nitescu. Project description: nunav is a navigation system with the potential to reduce vehicle carbon emissions by preventing traffic congestion. The system proactively routes city traffic by calculating the best route for each car and communicating that information to each driver. Team video: http://bit.ly/RWjVN6
- Team StethoCloud, Australia. Hon Weng Chong, Andrew Lin, Mahsa Salehi and Karthik Rajah. Project description: StethoCloud is a cloud-powered, mobile-hybrid stethoscope for early detection of pneumonia. By connecting a custom stethoscope to a mobile phone, the user is able to transmit diagnostic information into a cloud service, reproducing the diagnostic capability of a trained medical doctor. Team video: http://bit.ly/PWCcKy
- Team Vivid, Egypt. Nour El-Dien Hussein, Muhammed Mousa El-Orabi and Fady Fawzy Rafla. Project description: Health Buzz is a cost-effective mobile-based solution that helps healthcare service providers access patients' electronic medical records through a secure cloud-based storage system. It services patients and physicians through a phone, tablet or desktop computer. Team video: http://bit.ly/T4PJAt
- Team Cipher256, Uganda. Aaron Tushabe, Joshua Okello, Dr. Davis Musinguzi, Josiah Kavuma and Joseph Kaizzi. Project description: WinSenga is a mobile application that aids health workers as they assist expectant mothers. The algorithm analyzes fetal heart sounds to determine the fetal heart rate (beats per minute) and the age and position of the fetus and then records these readings to the cloud. Team video: http://bit.ly/Us89qS
- Team QuadSquad, Ukraine. Maxim Osika, Valeriy Yasakov, Anton Stepanov, Anton Posternikov and Dmytro Samoilenko. Project description: Enable Talk was created to give disabled individuals with limited communication abilities a better way to communicate. It transforms sign language into a form of verbal communication by creating a mobile device that continuously recognizes sign language phonemes. Team video: http://bit.ly/UIDx4E
This year, more than 40 Imagine Cup teams applied for the grants. A judging panel of industry experts with knowledge spanning technology, venture capitalism, software development, startup culture and the nonprofit sector ranked each team based on specific criteria, including project impact and viability and team quality and motivation. The judges included the following:
- Akhtar Badshah, senior director of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Microsoft
- Daniel Brusilovsky, founder and CEO, Teens in Tech Labs
- Tim Draper, founder and managing director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
- Debra Dunn, faculty, Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford; board of directors, Skoll Foundation and B Lab
- Edward G. Happ, global chief information officer of International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, chairman of NetHope
- Tadhg Kelly, game design consultant
- Zeev Klein, general partner, Landmark Ventures
- Dan'l Lewin, corporate vice president, Strategic and Emerging Business Development, Microsoft
- Rob Miles, lecturer, University of Hull Computer Science Department
- Jeff Raikes, CEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Ann Winblad, managing director, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
About Microsoft YouthSpark
Microsoft YouthSpark is a global initiative that aims to create opportunities for 300 million youth in more than 100 countries during the next three years. This companywide initiative includes Citizenship and other company programs — both new and enhanced — that empower youth to imagine and realize their full potential by connecting them with greater opportunities for education, employment and entrepreneurship. Find out more at: http://www.microsoft.com/youthspark.
About Microsoft Imagine Cup
This year marks the 11th year of Imagine Cup, which will be celebrated at the worldwide finals in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 8–12, 2013. Students ages 16 and older are eligible to register and compete in Imagine Cup 2013 by visiting the Imagine Cup website at http://www.imaginecup.com. A full list of competitions and challenges are listed at http://imaginecup.com/main/compete. In the past decade, more than 1.65 million students from 190 countries have registered to compete for cash and other prizes.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
SOURCE Microsoft Corp.
Published December 4, 2012 Reads 678
Copyright © 2012 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.
More Stories By PR Newswire
Copyright © 2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PRNewswire content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of PRNewswire. PRNewswire shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
“Social, mobile, analytics and cloud can’t be looked at as distinct technology trends; they are facets of the same movement and an everyday reality for consumers and businesses alike,” said Craig Sowell, IBM VP of SmartCloud Marketing, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This means that businesses need to start looking at trends as one: cloud is the delivery, analytics is the unique insight, social is a shareable service, and mobile is the ubiquitous access.”
...May. 25, 2013 01:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,302 |
By Elizabeth White May. 25, 2013 01:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,435 |
By Pat Romanski In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Dave Eichorn, Global Data Center Practice Head at Zensar, will share a case study describing how a utility services company handled the migration of its Microsoft platform to the cloud. Challenged with the time-consuming task of opening operations out of temporary offices, this company struggled with the need to simultaneously access data that was accumulated from a vast amount of data-intensive jobs. Zensar migrated the company’s application ...May. 25, 2013 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,464 |
By Jeremy Geelan With Cloud Expo New York | 12th Cloud Expo [June 10-13, 2013] hurtling towards us, let's take a look at the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference coming up June 10-13 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.
We have technical and strategy sessions for you all four days dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, wha...May. 25, 2013 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 21,344 |
By Jeremy Geelan The new open source cloud orchestration platform called OpenStack is the promise of flexible network virtualization, and network overlays are looking closer than ever. The vision of this platform is to enable the on-demand creation of many distinct networks on top of one underlying physical infrastructure in the cloud environment. The platform will support automated provisioning and management of large groups of virtual machines or compute resources, including extensive monitoring in the cloud.May. 25, 2013 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 3,014 |
By Elizabeth White SYS-CON Events announced today that Wowrack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Wowrack’s core expertise lies in high-availability Private and Public Cloud IaaS Hosting Solutions. Wowrack provides a true Hybrid service – where business release all IT management and hardware provisioning – taking the data center and server system administrative headaches off our customer’s shoulders. ...May. 25, 2013 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,392 |
By Pat Romanski At pennies per virtual machine-hour, the economics of cloud computing are both compelling and daunting to replicate. Whether you are building your own cloud infrastructure, building a public cloud or choosing a cloud service, there are key strategy and technology decisions that make the difference between success and failure.
In his General Session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Jason Waxman, VP in the Intel Architecture Group and general manager of the Cloud Platforms Group within Inte...May. 25, 2013 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 896 |
By Elizabeth White You're getting pitched every day from your legacy enterprise software and hardware vendors about "cloud." They're doing an amazing job of convincing your CIO and CTO about what cloud is and how you should use it. The reality is they're defending their shrinking market share and keeping you on the legacy treadmill for as long as they can by selling you solutions that aren't "cloud."
In her session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Niki Acosta, Cloud Evangelista for Rackspace, will talk thro...May. 25, 2013 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 848 |
By Jeremy Geelan The rise of cloud computing has exposed hard drive-based storage as the new data center bottleneck. Combating this, data center managers have deployed SSDs to gain the performance needed to provide real-time access to data. However, due to budget constraints, many have turned to consumer-grade SSDs without understanding that they wear out quickly when processing enterprise workloads. In this session, Esther Spanjer will discuss recent endurance advancements in SSD technology that enable usage of...May. 25, 2013 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 2,765 |
By Liz McMillan Organizations across the world are increasingly starting to see the benefits of moving more and more services to the cloud. The focus on the cost-saving potential of cloud is rapidly shifting to completely transforming the business with cloud. As organizations are investing enormous sums on technology they are starting to realize that in order to maximize the return on investment and accelerate the business transformation process the first area of focus should be people. By ensuring the organiza...May. 25, 2013 09:15 AM EDT Reads: 1,184 |
- Cloud People: A Who's Who of Cloud Computing
- Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Dave Linthicum – Cloud Technology Partners
- Cloud Expo New York: Cloud Is Changing the Economics of Business
- Windows Azure IaaS Reaches General Availability
- Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Nicos Vekiarides – TwinStrata
- AMD and Adobe Collaborate on Upcoming Version of Adobe Premiere Pro Software to Enable Breakthrough Video Editing Performance Through Open Standards
- State and Local Governments Adopt Microsoft Dynamics CRM to Improve Citizen Service Delivery
- Enterasys Spotlights SDN's Impact on Traditional Networking in Upcoming Webinar
- New Relic Q1 2013 Blazes Past Growth Targets and Reaches 40,000 Active Customer Accounts
- Best CIO Practices Shared from SHI’s Customers
- Cloud Expo New York: Deploying Hybrid Cloud for Performance and Uptime
- Cloud Expo New York: Delivering Digital Marketing on the Cloud
- Cloud People: A Who's Who of Cloud Computing
- Cloud Expo New York: Best CIO Practices Shared from SHI’s Customers
- Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Dave Linthicum – Cloud Technology Partners
- Cloud Expo New York: Cloud Is Changing the Economics of Business
- Cloud Expo New York: How to Use Google Apps Script
- Windows Azure IaaS Reaches General Availability
- Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Nicos Vekiarides – TwinStrata
- AMD and Adobe Collaborate on Upcoming Version of Adobe Premiere Pro Software to Enable Breakthrough Video Editing Performance Through Open Standards
- Cloud Computing Bootcamp at Cloud Expo New York
- State and Local Governments Adopt Microsoft Dynamics CRM to Improve Citizen Service Delivery
- Enterasys Spotlights SDN's Impact on Traditional Networking in Upcoming Webinar
- New Relic Q1 2013 Blazes Past Growth Targets and Reaches 40,000 Active Customer Accounts
- The Top 150 Players in Cloud Computing
- What is Cloud Computing?
- Six Benefits of Cloud Computing
- The Top 250 Players in the Cloud Computing Ecosystem
- Twenty-One Experts Define Cloud Computing
- What's the Difference Between Cloud Computing and SaaS?
- The Future of Cloud Computing
- Virtualization Conference Keynote Webcast Live on SYS-CON.TV
- A Brief History of Cloud Computing: Is the Cloud There Yet?
- GDS International: Global Warming Scam?
- Cloud Expo Europe 2009 in Prague: Themes & Topics
- Cloud Computing Expo 2009 West: Call for Papers Now Closed








In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Dave Eichorn, Global Data Center Practice Head at Zensar, will share a case study describing how a utility services company handled the migration of its Microsoft platform to the cloud. Challenged with the time-consuming task of opening operations out of temporary offices, this company struggled with the need to simultaneously access data that was accumulated from a vast amount of data-intensive jobs. Zensar migrated the company’s application ...
With Cloud Expo New York | 12th Cloud Expo [June 10-13, 2013] hurtling towards us, let's take a look at the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference coming up June 10-13 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.
We have technical and strategy sessions for you all four days dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, wha...
The new open source cloud orchestration platform called OpenStack is the promise of flexible network virtualization, and network overlays are looking closer than ever. The vision of this platform is to enable the on-demand creation of many distinct networks on top of one underlying physical infrastructure in the cloud environment. The platform will support automated provisioning and management of large groups of virtual machines or compute resources, including extensive monitoring in the cloud.
SYS-CON Events announced today that Wowrack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Wowrack’s core expertise lies in high-availability Private and Public Cloud IaaS Hosting Solutions. Wowrack provides a true Hybrid service – where business release all IT management and hardware provisioning – taking the data center and server system administrative headaches off our customer’s shoulders. ...
At pennies per virtual machine-hour, the economics of cloud computing are both compelling and daunting to replicate. Whether you are building your own cloud infrastructure, building a public cloud or choosing a cloud service, there are key strategy and technology decisions that make the difference between success and failure.
In his General Session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Jason Waxman, VP in the Intel Architecture Group and general manager of the Cloud Platforms Group within Inte...
You're getting pitched every day from your legacy enterprise software and hardware vendors about "cloud." They're doing an amazing job of convincing your CIO and CTO about what cloud is and how you should use it. The reality is they're defending their shrinking market share and keeping you on the legacy treadmill for as long as they can by selling you solutions that aren't "cloud."
In her session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Niki Acosta, Cloud Evangelista for Rackspace, will talk thro...
The rise of cloud computing has exposed hard drive-based storage as the new data center bottleneck. Combating this, data center managers have deployed SSDs to gain the performance needed to provide real-time access to data. However, due to budget constraints, many have turned to consumer-grade SSDs without understanding that they wear out quickly when processing enterprise workloads. In this session, Esther Spanjer will discuss recent endurance advancements in SSD technology that enable usage of...
Organizations across the world are increasingly starting to see the benefits of moving more and more services to the cloud. The focus on the cost-saving potential of cloud is rapidly shifting to completely transforming the business with cloud. As organizations are investing enormous sums on technology they are starting to realize that in order to maximize the return on investment and accelerate the business transformation process the first area of focus should be people. By ensuring the organiza...
Imagine if you could take a time machine five years into the future, so that you would know which of today’s new technologies panned out and which did not.
Most companies have only started using cloud in the past two years. But there are some companies that have been using cloud for five years or...
Although often misunderstood, cloud computing ultimately relies on the same technological underpinnings as traditional server and storage options. While software, platforms and even infrastructure are farmed out to third-party providers, their ability to operate efficiently is constrained by the sam...
Hyper-V Replica is our included asynchronous site-to-site VM replication capability for Windows Server 2012 and our free Hyper-V Server 2012 bare-metal enterprise-grade hypervisor. Using Hyper-V Replica, you can quickly implement a cost-effective disaster recovery plan for your business critical VM...
While movement to the cloud keeps accelerating, fears about security hang on. Let’s take a look at the most common myths about cloud security that might be holding businesses back from taking advantage of the flexibility and scalability of the cloud model.
This is the piece of “common sense” that h...
“The last time I checked, people do not change their social security numbers very often...”
While in constant debate over data encryption and ease of access, I encountered a train of thought that made my jaw drop. A tradeshow attendee suggested encrypting everything, but just use a weak algorithm; ...
Don and I have four children, all of whom have had the fortune to take piano lessons (I'm not sure if the youngest would agree he's fortunate at this point in his life but at five, he's not really able to answer the question with any degree of wisdom, anyway. Come to think of it, not sure the other ...
Our prior post, A Roadmap to High-Value Cloud Infrastructure: Disaster Recovery and Data Protection, discussed both the benefits and limitations of a cloud-based disaster recovery (DR) strategy. As we highlighted last week, traditional disaster recovery options leave open a huge hole: At one extreme...
Online collaboration has evolved during the last decade, delivering even greater value -- thanks to a new generation of business technology applications. Forbes Insights released "Collaborating in the Cloud," a Cisco-sponsored study examining the ways business leaders increasingly look at cloud coll...
New technologies allow schools, colleges and universities to analyze absolutely everything that happens. From student behavior, testing results, career development of students as well as educational needs based on changing societies. A lot of this data has already been stored and is used for statist...
A recent Gartner study states that the function of the modern CIO is in flux and that his or her future focus must incorporate digital assets (aka cloud-based data and applications) to remain relevant. Towards the goal of riding the sea change a compiler of stacks to a broker of business needs, secu...














