Academia Events Feed

Imagine Cup; UK Bags 1st Place in Short Film and 3rd in Games Development

edunhill — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:19:19 GMT

We’re now all back from Cairo and fully recovered from the heat and sleep deprivation. The great news is that across the board the UK teams excelled with both the Short Film and Games Development making it on stage at the final.

Our Short Film team (Fulham Four) were from the London Film Academy and created an excellent short featuring a mummy particularly keen on interior design which went down very well with the judges and bagged the top spot. Once we have their film online I’ll post a link.

Sanguine Labs, our Games Development team haled from Bournemouth University and beat off stiff competition to secure third place with their game DEFILE of Eden.

Both our Software and Embedded teams placed in the top 12 internationally and our IT Challenge competitor in the top 10. Overall excellent results considering at the beginning of the competition there were more than 300,000 students in the mix! For all the results see the official Imagine Cup website.

Everyone had a great time and the highlight was definitely the closing ceremony held in front of the pyramids (see above photo). Next year the Imagine Cup final will be held in Warsaw so start thinking about your entries now and you might be joining us next year! Visit imaginecup.com to find out more.

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup,Students,Microsoft,Cairo

Student Celebration Day Videos

edunhill — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:13:00 GMT

Just as we’re heading off to Cairo for the Imagine Cup worldwide finals I want to give you a flashback to the UK final event…

Previously I published the slides from all of the Microsoft Research talks delivered on the day and now, finally I have the videos online!

Getting from A to B: Fast Route Finding Using Slow Computers from Ed Dunhill on Vimeo.

Curing Cancer, Halting Global Disease Outbreaks, Preventing Dangerous Climate Change from Ed Dunhill on Vimeo.

Proving that Software Eventually Does Something Good from Ed Dunhill on Vimeo.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Research,Students,Imagine Cup,Route Finding,Computational Ecology,Termination Bugs

Student Celebration Day Slides

edunhill — Fri, 01 May 2009 10:31:00 GMT

To follow on from yesterday’s post I wanted to share the slides from the MSR talks:

MSR Overview - Andrew Herbert
Getting from A to B: fast route-finding using slow computers - Simon Peyton-Jones
Curing Cancer, Halting global Disease Outbreaks and averting Dangerous Climate Change - Drew Purves
Proving that programs eventually do something good - Byron Cook

Videos will follow next week.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Research,Imagine Cup,MSP

Student Celebration Day

edunhill — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:12:23 GMT

Yesterday we held a big event at MSR (Microsoft Research) Cambridge to celebrate the success of UK MSPs and Imagine Cup Contestants.

The day included a series of fascinating talks from MSR and Microsoft (slides and video to follow shortly) and culminated in an award ceremony for MSPs and Imagine Cup winners.

Team TKCL (Kings College) with their route finding application Pioneer won the Software Development competition and will be representing the UK in Cairo later this year. Runners up were Vision Creative from Reading/Aston with their CityCycle application and TravelPrint from Aberystwyth University.

We also highlighted the success we have had in Games, I'm positive that the 22 teams competing in round 2 of the competition will produce some awesome games and we’ll end up taking some of them to Cairo.

MSP awards were as follows:

Imagine Cup Registration Award – Andrew Smylie
Ultimate Steal Award – Andrew Smylie
DreamSpark Award – Gareth Young
Most Innovative Event – Honourable mention – Gareth Young, Winner – Warren Rieutort-Louis
MSP Star Award – Runner up – Sergei Golubev, Winner – Chris Alexander

We encouraged the use of twitter throughout so you can check out the reaction on the hash tag #imaginecup.

Congratulations to all those who won a prize and thank you to all the other students that travelled to Cambridge for the event.

As mentioned above I’ll shortly make the slides from the event available and we’re hoping to have the videos on Channel8 next week.

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup,Students,Microsoft Research

Imagine Cup Registrations

ukacademia — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:44:17 GMT

Hello Everyone,

Interest for the Imagine Cup has been strong and we can confirm the various categories are now open for competition. From experience we know that the next couple of months will be key in getting great UK representation in the Imagine Cup.

Here are just a few of the reasons for encouraging your students to compete:

- PR: The Imagine Cup attracts the attention of both regional and national newspapers, together with technology and education press and news websites such as the BBC. Having students from your university compete in the Imagine Cup is great for raising the profile of your university in two important ways. Firstly it demonstrates the quality of your graduates to IT employers and makes them more attractive as employees (e.g. Dominic Green, UK winner of the 2008 competition) and secondly, it attracts new students to your university.

- Skills Development: Fundamentally the Imagine Cup is about helping students get real world experience with Microsoft technology. The skills learned during the various competitions compliment their studies and are invaluable when students apply for jobs with IT companies.

- Students Inspiration: With every technology interest area catered for, the competition is a great way to channel students’ passion for technology out of class.

We want as many UK institutions and students to get involved with the Imagine Cup as possible, and to help you participate we provide:

- Giveaways for students: Every week we give away web cams and Starbucks vouchers. We also hold a monthly draw for a Dell laptop, providing everything a student needs to see them through their studies and the Imagine Cup competition.

- Donation of an Xbox 360 gaming lab kit for your university: The university with the most registrations will receive 4 Xbox 360s, 8 wired controllers and an assortment of the latest Xbox 360 titles. You are free to use them for XNA development or as a social/recreation area for students.

If you would like to receive regular updates on the registration numbers from your university then please let me know and I will happily send them to you. You can contact me by telephone (0118 909 3409) or if you prefer by email (mailto:ukacinfo@microsoft.com).

And just to give you an idea of how we are doing so far, here are the top fifteen universities with the highest number of registrations:

University	Registrations
Brighton	89
Birmingham City	38
Cumbria	38
Bradford	37
Reading	35
Robert Gordon	35
Derby	31
Nottingham	24
De Montfort	23
Keele	23
Cambridge	20
Hull	20
Imperial College	20
Brunel	18
RHUL	20

If you would like to know more, them please email or telephone me. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.

Good luck,

Allison

Student Technology Day Videos Now Online

edunhill — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:42:54 GMT

On 1st of October at the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank, London we hosted an awesome event with Steve Ballmer (Microsoft CEO) keynoting and a host of other top speakers flanking him.

We've now got all the sessions online so if you couldn't make the event you can find out what you missed and best of all the videos are delivered using Silverlight.

All of the other sessions can be found here.

Technorati Tags: Steve Ballmer,Microsoft,Surface,MSR,Students,Live Search,Huddle

Student Technology Day - Future User Experience Technologies

ukacademia — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:02:22 GMT

Hello All,

Filmed at the Royal Festival on 1st October, please find below the session by Paolo Barone on Microsoft Surface:

If for any reason you cannot view this clip, please do let me know.

Best wishes,

Allison

Student Technology Day - Microsoft Research Talk on CS Inside Halo 3 True Ranking System

ukacademia — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:53:11 GMT

For those of you who joined us at the Royal Festival Hall on 1st October and, especially for those who were otherwise engaged, please find below the session by Thore Graepel, Joaquin Quiñonero Candela and Ralf Herbrich on Microsoft Research Talk on CS Inside Halo 3 True Ranking System:

If you are unable to view the above clip, please do let me know.

Best wishes,

Allison

Microsoft Student Technology Day Videos Online - SteveB and more industry/MSFT greats

markjo — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:49:35 GMT

On 1 October 2008, Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer and a host of industry professionals discussed the next generation of computer science innovations with more than 300 students and lecturers from across the UK - the event was the Student Technology Day.

The videos are now all online in glorious Silverlight. And I've embedded the big man here, he was on fire that day:

The videos:

There is embed code on the site for you to put the videos on your blog/site/etc - Student Technology Day

Enjoy!

Inspiration Tour back on the Road

edunhill — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:12:00 GMT

Yesterday saw the first of this academic years Inspiration Tour events at Bradford University.

This year we're running two sessions; one focusing onrich application development using Silverlight/WPF and the other on XNA games development. The content is designed to introduce these technologies and give an insight into their commercial application (with lots of cool demos along the way).

We have a really busy schedule over the next couple of months, with the below dates already booked up. However if your university isn't on the list and you want us to come and see you then drop me a line and we'll try and squeeze you in.

Blackpool and the Fylde - 14/10/2008
Hertfordshire - 15/10/2008
Liverpool Hope University - 16/10/2008
UEL - 21/10/2008
Sunderland - 22/10/2008
De Montfort - 28/10/2008
Reading - 29/10/2008
Glyndŵr University - 04/11/2008
Aberystwyhth - 05/11/2008
Aston - 11/11/2008
Edge Hill - 12/11/2008
Canterbury - 13/11/2008
University of West Scotland - 17/11/2008
Glasgow Caladonian - 18/11/2008
Abertay - 19/11/2008
Edinburgh Napier - 20/11/2008
Robert Gordon University - 21/11/2008
Brighton - 25/11/2008
Staffs - 26/11/2008
Huddersfield - 03/12/2008
Greenwich - 09/12/2008
Teesside - 10/12/2008
Birmingham - 21/01/2009
Westminster - 21/01/2009

Technorati Tags: Inspiration Tour,Microsoft,University,Students,XNA,WPF,Silverlight

MSDN: What’s New in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1?

ukacademia — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:32:02 GMT

Hello,

I want to invite you along to a free half day event taking place in Exeter on 23rd October 2008 and which was created with developers in mind.

Technical experts from the UK MSDN team will deliver a range of demos and provide insight into the latest enhancements across many areas of the .Net Framework. This is your opportunity to broaden your knowledge base and stay ahead of these latest developments.

If you think this is something you’d like to attend, you can find out more or register by clicking here.

In the meantime, have a lovely weekend.

Allison

Microsoft Research Asia - 10th Anniversary Innovation Forum

ukacademia — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:29:56 GMT

On August 12, Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft^®, joined visionary technologists from Microsoft Research (MSR) Asia, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, and the University of Hong Kong, to celebrate a decade of ground-breaking collaboration during the Microsoft Research Asia's 10th Anniversary Innovation Forum.

Gates, who delivered the keynote speech, said that Microsoft’s relationship to academia in the Asia Pacific region remains vital and that cultivating the next generation of researchers should continue to be a focal point of MSR Asia’s work. “For the last 10 years, great collaborative work between Microsoft Research Asia and the region’s world-leading academic researchers has resulted in a wide range of exciting technology innovations,” Gates said. “As Asia becomes more and more of a global centre for innovation, I have no doubt that Microsoft Research Asia and its academic partners will have an even bigger impact on the world of technology.”

At the MSR Asia Innovation Forum, Bill Gates said that the success of Microsoft depends on its ability to attract and retain the best talent from around the world—something he believes MSR Asia is doing well.

To learn more about this collaboration and to hear Bill’s speech, click Innovation.

Best wishes,

Allison

News from the Faculty Summit

ukacademia — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:03:08 GMT

Lee Dirks, the Director for Education and Scholarly Research, announced five new ‘lifecycle’ tools for academics and researchers. The tools are as follows:

Research Information Centre
Creative Commons (an add-in to Microsoft Office)
Article Authoring (an add-in to Microsoft Word)
E-Journal Hosting Service
Research Output Repository Platform

To hear more about these tools from Lee, please visit Channel 8.

If you have any questions, do contact me and I’ll see if I can get them answered for you.

Best,

Allison

Pixel Poetry

ukacademia — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:14:17 GMT

Hi,

It was our very great pleasure to sponsor and support the Microsoft Photography Competition at the Department of Engineering 2008, at the University of Cambridge.

Blue Spikes, by Sonja Findeisen-Tandel

If proof were needed, these photographs exemplify the strong connection between art and science and that engineering particularly, has an inner beauty. The winning photograph, Blue Spikes, by Sonja Findeisen-Tandel, together with other stunning entries can be viewed at Microsoft Photography Competition at the Department of Engineering.

Which puts me in mind on Imagine Cup 2009 and the category for best photo story. It isn’t too soon to get your students involved and thinking about the competition. You never know, the lucky winner could be from your university and joining us in Cairo for the world finals. The next set of photographs could be of the pyramids and feluccas on Nile.

For an overview of the photo story competition please visit Photo Story.

All the best,

Allison

remix UK – a 48 hour conversation

ukacademia — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:51:25 GMT

Hi Everyone

If you have been wondering 'where next for the web?' this event might just be for you and there is an early bird saving for the first three hundred people to book. Click here to reserve a place.

And if you have any ideas for a topic you would like to see presented at remix UK and have a good idea of just who you’d like to present it, there is a chance you can get it added to the mash up.

Best for the weekend,

Allison

Imagine Cup Update

edunhill — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:25:00 GMT

Both our Software Design and Embedded development teams put in a sterling effort but unfortunately neither progressed to the final. At least we can take consolation in the quality of the entries that did progress, the quality of work produced by our international peers is outstanding.

The format of the photography competition is slightly different and we won't know how Jason our competitor from the UK did until this afternoon when all the winners are announced. His photo essay looked fantastic so I think we're in with a real chance.

Tom Randell the mentor of our SD team Resolve Evolve Solve kindly videoed their presentation and it is now up on Soapbox so if you want to see their project look no further!

Video: EnviroMatch Presentation

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup 2008,Resolve Evolve Solve,Enviromatch,Super Recycling,Paris,Microsoft

Imagine Cup Grand Final, Paris

edunhill — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:48:00 GMT

Over the past couple of weeks our UK finalist teams have been spending every waking hour preparing for the Imagine Cup final where they'll be tested to their limits and ultimately have the opportunity to win the worlds largest and most prestigious student technology competition.

This year the Imagine Cup's theme is focused on maintaining a sustainable environment, to find out more about what Microsoft's commitment to the environment take a look at http://www.microsoft.com/environment.

I've been working closely with the teams (hence the lack of activity on my blog - sorry) to ensure they are at the top of their game and can stand up to the judges scrutiny.

We arrived in Paris by Eurostar yesterday morning (5am start for me as I traveled form Bath) and had the pleasure of opening the weeks competition with a welcome reception at Paris Town Hall.

We have teams in Software Design (Ben Nunney and Dominic Green), Embedded Development and Photography. Today is round one of the final which means that from 2pm all the teams will be presenting and ultimately only 12 teams will progress to the next round. I have the pleasure of sitting in one some of the Software Design presentations so will get to see what the rest of the world have to offer.

We should know if our SD/ED teams have progressed to Round Two by tonight so look for an update later on :)

In the meantime check out Joe Wilson's video blog from the competition on C8.

Technorati Tags: Imagine Cup,Paris,Students,Microsoft,Software Design,Embedded,Photography

Invitation to Convergence 2008 Copenhagen - Microsoft Dynamics Academic Alliance MDAA:00071306

ukacademia — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:26:00 GMT

Hi,

I thought you'd like to receive your invitation to an interesting event in Denmark.

Microsoft Dynamics Academic Alliance invites you to attend:

Microsoft Academic Preconference and Convergence 2008 Copenhagen, Denmark from 17 to 20 November, 2008.

Last year we hosted about 60 educators and researchers from 17 countries from around the world. We would like to see you this year!

The Academic Preconference will be held 17-18 November 2008.

· Includes two tracks (Educators and Researchers Track) with several special sessions, workshops and network opportunities for educators and researchers working with Microsoft Dynamics software. You will be able to network, exchange experiences and enhance your knowledge with like-minded educators and researchers.

· Location: Copenhagen Business School (CBS) – Kilevej 14a, 2000 Frederiksberg.

· Registration fee: no registration fee is associated with these two days.

· Please consider the following call for papers and presentations.

Call for Papers – Researchers Track - due by 1st September 2008:

Academic Preconference 2008 - Research Agenda

17 - 18 November 2008
Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Frederiksberg

Submit to: workshop@3gERP.org - Please write "Submission to 3gERP workshop"

See instructions attached.

Call for Presentation – Educators Track - due by 1st September 2008:

Academic Preconference 2008 - Educators Agenda
17 - 18 November 2008

Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Frederiksberg

Submit to: dynaa@microsoft.com – Please write “Academic Preconference - Convergence 2008 Presentation”

See instructions attached.

Convergence will be held 19-20 November 2008.

· Here you will enhance your knowledge through Dynamics conference sessions and interactions with Microsoft customers, partners, Microsoft Dynamics specialist and industry experts and establish a true community that can be leveraged in your work.

· Location: Bella Center A/S, Center Boulevard, 2300 Copenhagen S

· Registration fee - Academic Alliance team will fund a main part of your registration fee at Convergence. Your costs will include €250.00 for your share of registration fee.

· Please request special registration codes from us to have the special academic fee.

Registration:

To register please fill in attached registration form and send to dynaa@microsoft.com.

Registration includes entrance at the registered event, the meals served as part of the agenda as well as a special educator evening gathering.

The number of participants is limited due to space restrictions and will be determined on a first come basis.

Customer Excellence Award - Excellence in Academics:

· The Convergence Customer Excellence Awards recognize, honor and celebrate customers/members that have achieved outstanding success with their Microsoft solutions as well as Microsoft partners’ solutions. Start to consider if that is your educational institution.

· Please submit your own nomination via the online form which will be available 1 July 2008. Find more details here: http://www.microsoft.com/Dynamics/convergence/copenhagen/2008/customer_excellence.aspx

To make sure to receive all details please write to dynaa@microsoft.com to be included on the mailing list.

We look forward to seeing you in Copenhagen!

MICROSOFT DYNAMICS ACADEMIC ALLIANCE

The Microsoft Dynamics Academic Alliance is a global program that enables educators to incorporate Microsoft Dynamics technology into the classroom. Currently, over 1,000 institutions around the world use Microsoft Dynamics products to provide students with an exceptional hands-on learning experience. If you would like to learn more about the Academic Alliance you are welcome to visit our website: http://www.microsoft.com/education/academic_alliance.mspx.

Conference on 3rd Generation Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (3gERP)

The 3gERP project aims to develop the academic foundations for a ‘standard’ flexible and highly configurable global ERP-system for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), which can be implemented and maintained at a fraction of the costs of current systems. The ambition of the project is to tackle some of the fundamental challenges and trade-offs existing systems have, for instance with regard to customizability vs. total cost including upgrades. If you would like to learn more about 3gERP please visit this website: http://www.3gerp.org

All the best,

Allison, your new Academic Information Manager

Inspiration Tour Wrap Up Video

edunhill — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:43:18 GMT

Regular readers of this blog will know that a huge amount of my time this year was dedicated to taking new technologies on the road and showing students how to get started with them.

In the end we travelled over 15,000 miles to speak to 4000 students at 60 UK universities!

We thought it would be cool to put together a video to summarise what the tour was all about and warm everyone up for next academic year.

You can see the video on Channel 8...

Technorati Tags: Inspiration Tour,Channel 8,Students,Microsoft,XNA,Silverlight,Windows Embedded

MIX08 Sessions Now Online

edunhill — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:20:44 GMT

If you're interested in Microsoft Web technologies then this is for you, the sessions from Microsoft's annual Web conference held in Las Vegas are now online at http://sessions.visitmix.com/. There's lots of cool content available including presentations on Internet Explorer 8, Silverlight 2 and Surface.

One of the stand out videos for me is the second keynote which is an interview with Steve Ballmer given by Guy Kawasaki. Guy was an original employee of Apple responsible for some of their early marketing campaigns and is often credited for bringing the concept of evangelism to the tech industry, he is now a well known Silicon Valley venture capitalist. As you can imagine Guy does not give Steve an easy run for his money and the interview is both interesting whilst remaining fairly light hearted. You can watch this keynote session here.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Web Technology,MIX08,Silverlight,Surface,Expression,Internet Explorer 8