Our Imagine Cup World Finalists are coming from dozens of countries around the world to Seattle, bringing with them their laptops and their robots and their gadgets and their hopes.
Monday, July 27th: Students arrive at the University of Washington for their briefings. We'll spend all day on coaching for presentations and demonstrations, so that everyone can start the competition off with their best foot forward.
Tuesday, July 28th: Students will start the day at the Microsoft campus, with demonstrations of some of the latest Microsoft technologies. After that, they'll be headed over to the TechReady conference at the Washington State Convention Center to showcase their projects to the experts at Microsoft. The showcases aren't just for show, though; one team will be chosen as the winner of the People's Choice Award, as voted by TechReady attendees!
Wednesday, July 29th: The last year of preparation finally comes to fruition! The real competition begins Wednesday as teams head over to the Microsoft campus to present their projects to our three panels of expert judges. Each team will have 10 minutes to present their project and field any questions from the judges. This is the big moment, where we'll be scoring every presentation and choosing our World Finals winners in each category. But there's no rest for the teams; immediately after the competition the showcase will open to Microsoft employees from 6pm to 8pm.
Thursday, July 30th: Bright and early, we'll meet on the Microsoft campus for the Awards Presentation. We'll award prizes to the first, second, and third place teams in the Games, Innovation, and World Citizenship categories. After that, we'll be holding the Imagine Code Camp, a free Learn to Code session for kids 8 and older. All kids are welcome to participate in the one-hour TouchDevelop tutorial. Come by and help us set the Guiness World Record for the most people taught to code in 8 hours! Meanwhile, the Imagine Cup competitors will have their showcase open throughout the day. And after all that, we'll be inviting our teams to join us at the TechReady party at CenturyLink Field!
Friday, July 31st: On our last day together, we'll invite all the teams back to the Washington State Convention Center for our final event: the World Championship! Starting at noon, we'll ask our three winning teams to compete live, on-stage, in front of our celebrity judge panel, including Alex Kipman, inventor of HoloLens, and Jens Bergensten, Lead Designer of Minecraft! Everyone is welcome to join us on our live stream at www.imaginecup.com, and watch the excitement! Every team that makes it to the World Finals is a winner, but only one team will go home with the Imagine Cup and the grand prize: a meeting with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, to discuss their project and its future with one of the industry's biggest leaders.
