Making Smart Cities: The power of hackathons brings together Rogers, UBC students, City of Kelowna, and Microsoft to advance 5G smart city applications

The convergence of industry, public service, enterprise, and academia occurred in January 2020 when Rogers reached out to Microsoft to discuss a potential collaboration with UBC that would showcase the capability of 5G networks when paired with Azure Edge Compute technology. The plan was to get a group of the most creative computer science and electrical engineering students from UBC….

Hackathon project mirrors courage, accelerates progress in the Microsoft Garage Residency

The project team of epilepsy data tracking app “MirrorHR” finds success and support in a Residency with The Garage. For seven years, Microsoft’s Hackathon has sparked new opportunities and given employees the creative space to champion innovative solutions and ideas that can make a difference and solve critical problems. MirrorHR is here to accomplish just that, to achieve a vast….

Garage project Sketch 360 comes to Surface Duo

Nearly two years ago, we released a Garage project created by a passionate engineer who channeled his classical architecture training and love for drawing into a 360 sketch app. Sketch 360 enables artists to create full, 360-degree, panoramic sketches with ease, using an innovative grid design. Originally released on Windows and designed around Surface Laptop, Surface Go, and the power….

Microsoft Hackathon 2020 Grand Prize Winner: Customizable digital assistant

What if you could train a digital assistant on what was important to you and teach it to do tasks, like look up today’s pollen count, book the next open local campsite, or alert you when an item goes on sale? The grand prize winning team of Microsoft Hackathon 2020 did just that with their customizable digital assistant project, built….

Zero Waste Certified: Sustainability at Microsoft Hackathon

While Microsoft’s Puget Sound campus has achieved Zero Waste Certification since 2016, the Hackathon was the first Microsoft event to achieve that honor in 2018, and again in 2019. With sustainability as a priority, the Hackathon planning teams share details of what it means to be zero waste. Every summer Hackathon brings together employees from different disciplines and organizations, along with….

Windows Insiders hack sustainability at Microsoft Hackathon

What do a forester, a developer, and a software architect have in common? A passion for problem-solving and, as it turns out, stopping illegal timber trade. Antonio de Marco, James Mundy, and Mauro Petrini came together from different corners of the world to participate in the 2019 Microsoft Hackathon. Their objective was protecting biodiversity through sustainable forestry by solving one….