Microsoft Innovation Center Report 2008-2009 vol.1
Domestic IT Venture Companies Support Students Who are Aiming for the World – Imagine Cup Japan 2008
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March 31st, 2008 at Microsoft Co. Ltd., Japan HQ; April 27th, 2008 at HAL Nagoya
Imagine Cup is a world wide technology competition for students aspiring to be the next generation of engineers. A large number of teams submitted entries to the highly competitive Software Design invitationals in the contest. Three teams selected for the best product award participated in Imagine Cup 2008 in Japan.
As a new initiative, the Student Mentoring Program (Japan Innovation Accelerator Program) was launched at this year's competition. Selected three domestic IT venture companies work one-on-one with each team as a mentor until Imagine Cup 2008, providing advice to each team in the Software Design invitationals, to win the domestic contest and grab a ticket to the world competition.
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Technology Competition to Foster Students to be World-Class IT Talents of the Future
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Imagine Cup is a technology competition targeting to foster young talents who will forge the next generation technology by offering them an opportunity to demonstrate their passions, imaginations and creativity to the world. Through its five-year history, the competition has become well known as a world-wide competition for students. Each year, teams of students compete in several invitationals based on a provided theme for the year, which features current world concerns.
“Last year, 100,000 students from 100 countries registered for the competition, and we have 180,000 students this year,” said Takaaki Tomizawa (Group Senior Manager, Academic Evangelism, D&PE, Microsoft Japan), “Imagine Cup is not only the world’s largest technology competition for students, but also an important occasion for us to scout out young talents, and support them to become those who will bear the future IT industry.”
The Software Design invitationals is highly competitive. In keeping with a theme of “imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment”, the competition this year has a series of presentations of software designs, and national teams from various countries will demonstrate their technological skills and creativity. In the past, Japanese teams achieved some remarkable results: They moved into the finals as one of the best eight teams in Imagine Cup 2005 in Japan, and as one of the best six in Imagine Cup 2006 in India.
“Mr. Hidekazu Kondo from Waseda University, who participate in the 1st Imagine Cup in Barcelona, is now President and CEO of Lunascape Co., Ltd.,” continued Tomizawa, “Mr. Masato Najima, who participated in the 2nd Imagine Cup in Brazil, is now President and CEO of N.A.gene Corporation. Some of you might know Mr. Kondo as the winner of Microsoft Innovation Award 2007 (MIA 2007) Best Commercial Business Award As you see, a lot of former national members with brilliant records have now become key figures in the Japanese IT industry.”
Mentor Companies Support The Students to Prepare to Compete in the World Contest
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On April 1st, 2008, Microsoft Co. Ltd., Japan launched the Student Mentoring Program (Japan Innovation Accelerator Program) for students aspiring to become IT engineers. As its first step, this program was provided to the three elected student teams in the Software Design invitationals in Imagine Cup Japan 2008.
“We have three mentor companies who cooperate with the program and participate in Imagine Cup 2008: Chepro Co. Ltd.
, Knowlbo Corporation, and SoftAdvance, Inc.”, commented Tomizawa, “They are leading-edge IT venture companies in Japan, and are winner companies of MIA 2007. We believe it will be a very valuable and remarkable experience for the students, who are about to demonstrate their creative ideas to the world, to receive advice and direct supervision from these key companies who provide innovations in today’s business scene.”
Each of these companies joined one student team as its mentor, providing supervision and support for their team’s software design and presentation.
| • | “I think NISLab’s software has very high potential to be realized,” suggested Tomoo Saito (CEO, Knowlbo Corporation), “and it is easy to imagine the great impact this software could have on the world. In order to vitalize the IT industry in Japan, we need an environment where we can foster innovation as well as a wide range of inspiration and creativity. I would be happy to provide as much technological support as we can to realize such a great idea from our students.” |
| • | “What’s important for the IAMAS team is not the technological logics of the system, but a know-how of commercial packaging and the notion for commercial success,” emphasized Reiji Fukuda (CEO, Chepro Co. Ltd.), “Our company also got a great opportunity when we were elected for Microsoft Incubation Program. I would like to have a discussion about each other’s experiences and ideas so that we can generate interesting ideas and unique structures.” |
| • | “It is very important to provide a business point-of-view to talented and passionate students like Team EMET,” suggested Wataru Sugawara (CEO, SoftAdvance, Inc.), “It has been our company’s goal since the establishment to produce software that can compete in the world market. I feel very honored with this opportunity to support the students’ development process in their drive to compete in the world. A program like this definitely accelerates innovation and provides a great opportunity to foster talented individuals. I am very thankful to Microsoft for realizing such an idea and keeping the program going. |
An Imagine Cup 2008 judge, Ikuo Takeuchi (Professor, the University of Tokyo Graduate School), has high hopes on the effects of the Student Mentoring Program (Japan Innovation Accelerator Program).
“I think Imagine Cup gives young students, who have a lot of potential, a great opportunity to show what they can do in a world-wide competition,” says Professor Takeuchi, “This year’s Imagine Cup theme is “imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment”. It will be necessary for students to see from broader perspective and go beyond targeting only the domestic markets in order to produce a world-class solution. Support from the mentor companies will be very helpful for the students to focus on the international targets.”
Convincing Presentations Thanks to the Support of Mentor Companies
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Imagine Cup Japan 2008 was held as a part of The Student Day 2008 program at HAL Nagoya on April 27, 2008. Software Design invitationals nominee teams gave their presentations to a highly interested audience of approximately 400 Student Day 2008 participants.
For a month since the Student Mentoring Program (Japan Innovation Accelerator Program) started, each team has improved the quality of their solutions and presentations by taking advice from their mentor companies. It became a very high-level competition about which Kanji Akahori, The Student Day Committee Chairman (Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology) said: “The quality of all the teams is almost equal and any of them could be the winner.”
NISLab
Members: Tomoaki Matsushita, Hiroki Kato, Makoto Shimizu, and Shinji Nakajima (Doshisha University)
Software: ECOGRID – global power consumption management system
Their mentor Saito, CEO of Knowlbo Corporation, comments on ECOGRID from NISLab as “it is easy to imagine the world when this software is released to the general public, and I believe it will certainly be realized in the market.” ECOGRID is a system to control the power consumption of home appliances. It helps to decrease the power consumption of home appliances that are estimated to account for, in total, half of the nation’s entire power consumption. In addition, this system shares each household’s power consumption to promote ecological consciousness in the public.
“I would really like to go to the world competition,” says Tomoaki Matsushita (NISLab, Doshisha University), “With our mentor company’s support, we could work systematically like a real project. We have prepared well, and we will give a presentation with confidence.”
In their presentation, they demonstrated how to control home appliances set in the floor and in their lab in Kyoto. As Matsushita said above, their presentation was easy to understand and convincing because of their confidence.
IAMAS
Members: Tsuyoshi Miura, Tetsuya Asano, Seita Matsuura, Yuki Muraki (IAMAS: International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences)
Software: Reco - 3R Promotion Web site
For the given theme of “Achieving Environmental Conservation with Technology”, IAMAS focused on the issue of garbage and they developed a “3R” promotion Web site: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. This integrated portal consists of three categories: The product page, which would publish information such as reuse and recycle levels per product to promote the consciousness of reduce; the auction page, where users can participate in auctions of reusable products; and finally, the region page, which provides information about recycle, including collection days of recyclables, how to separate them from garbage, and ecological events.
“With our mentor company’s advice and suggestions,” notes Tsuyoshi Miura (IAMAS), “we improved the quality of our presentation during the previous month. From now on, we would like to improve this system further to support different rules and regulations in various regions in the world.”
Their presentation demonstrated a community for end-users as well as emphasized the merits for companies to effectively advertise their ecological and/or reusable products.
Team EMET
Members: Hiroshi Adachi, Tetsushi Adachi (The University of Tokyo Graduate School), Michiaki Okamoto (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)
Software: moQmo – new dimensional map information system
Based on the concept that effective use of the public transportation system by utilizing IT would help reduce carbon dioxide and air pollutants, Team EMET developed an activity map with a time axis. With various layers including information on the public transportation systems and garbage collection spots locations on Virtual Earth™, moQmo allows users to view current and past information with a clock tool. Users can, for example, check the high traffic hours so that they can shift their commuting hours to avoid them and help reduce the emission of carbon dioxide.
“I would like to go to the world competition and meet Bill Gates,” says Michiaki Okamoto (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), “We all are very proud of our project and intend to develop it beyond the competition to an operational level in the real world.”
Sugawara (CEO, SoftAdvance, Inc.) appraised the possibility the system provides and kept giving Team EMET advice until just before the presentation. Team EMET gave a unique presentation with attractive rendering and effective use of video content.
Team with a Good Balance of Solution and Presentation
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NISLab’s ECOGRID was selected, by impartial panel of judges, as the national representative for Imagine Cup 2008. “I have been looking forward to this day when new innovation is born in Japan,” Emanuele (Millo) Ognissanti (Academic Audience Group Marketing Manager, Microsoft Corporation) said, honoring the team.
“The screening was very difficult,” Ognissanti notes, “as many students with high potential and skill collaborated and developed their unique ideas into real products. I have been a part of Imagine Cup for the last few years and have seen many participants in the competition who are now on the front lines of the IT industry. I am looking forward to meeting these students again when they become members of the IT industry in the near future.”
The key factor for the final selection was a balance. As Chairman Akahori noted that NISLab had a good balance of the solution’s quality and their presentation, the reviewers recognized that ECOGRID demonstrated its effectiveness and NISLab’s presentation was easy to understand.
With the supervision of their mentor company Knowlbo Corporation, NISLab will go to Imagine Cup 2008 in France in June. In the press conference after Imagine Cup Japan 2008, NISLab received a lot of feedback and advice from the press and the judges. NISLab confirmed they would improve the quality of their software and presentation further before they participate in the world competition in France.
| The Student Day 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
April 27th, 2008, HAL Nagoya Hosts: The Student Day Executive Committee (Yomiuri Shimbun, HAL Institute of Computer Technology, Microsoft Co. Ltd., Japan) Sponsors: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Aichi Prefecture Board of Education, City of Nagoya Board of Education Support: NEC Software Chubu, Ltd., Nippon Information Co., Ltd., Ricoh Chubu Co., Ltd. Media Supporters: ITmedia, WEB+DB PRESS, Software Design, Nikkei Software, ASCII Dot PC
The Student Day is an annual event for students interested in technology, programming, and game production. The event had a number of programs including Imagine Cup Japan 2008 and the keynote session to introduce a digital lifestyle that Microsoft suggests and its activities in Japan. Approximately 400 eager participants filled the floor of the event. In the exhibition booth, five MIA 2007 winner companies demonstrated their innovations. A number of students enthusiastically examined these innovative solutions.
Exhibition Booth Student Competition Award Products
Microsoft Innovation Award 2007 winner companies
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