Team of IU Informatics graduates wins Microsoft's prestigious Imagine Cup competition
July 14, 2008
Two Indiana University School of Informatics graduates took a first-place award at the prestigious Imagine Cup finals, an international competition sponsored by Microsoft Corp. and held this year in Paris. The pair has enjoyed enormous success recently, combining winning a highly competitive international competition with developing a project that had an impact on real-world environmental sustainability.
David Roedl and Will Odom, both alumni of the School's human-computer interaction design program, developed the idea and subsequent Web site for the recent "IU Energy Challenge," which pitted residence halls across campus against one another to achieve a significant reduction in electricity and water consumption.
The pair entered their Web site design in Microsoft's Imagine Cup Interface Design competition, along with 200,000 other entrants, and subsequently were selected as finalists.
Once they reached the finals, the competition was ramped up significantly. Roedl and Odom were given an on-site design challenge dealing with monitoring environmental air quality that they were required to complete in only 24 hours. They then presented their design to a distinguished panel of judges that included Surya Vanka, senior manager of user experience at Microsoft; Tom Chi, senior director of user experience at Yahoo!; and Neil Churcher, head of design and usability at Orange.
Overall, a total of 370 students from 124 teams representing 61 countries competed in the finals in nine different categories. Only two of the 27 winning teams in the competition were from the United States. The theme of this year's Cup was the environment; specifically, participants were encouraged to "imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment."
"I extend heartfelt congratulations to Will and Dave for this outstanding accomplishment," said Karen Hanson, Indiana University Bloomington provost and university executive vice president. "The campus was already proud of and grateful to them for their sustainability work, as their project helped lead the way to increased energy conservation in our residence halls. That this work has been internationally recognized in the award of the highly competitive Imagine Cup is superb news. This prestigious honor reflects well on our School of Informatics, its human-computer interaction design program, and the entire Bloomington campus -- as well as, of course, on Will and Dave."
The world's premier student technology competition, Imagine Cup is one way Microsoft is encouraging young people to apply their imagination, their passion, and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world -- today. The contest spans a year, beginning with local, regional and online contests whose winners go on to attend the global finals held in a different location every year.
