The Microsoft Imagine Cup is not just any technology competition. It is a skill-based Competition, more than two million students over 2 decades have signed up to sharpen their skills, learn new ones, and give back to their communities through innovation. Open to students around the world, the Imagine Cup Competition seeks to honor the most innovative, accessible, ground-breaking, and appealing software built with Microsoft tools and technology. The competition provides a platform to shape your ideas that address and bring positive change to some of today’s most pressing local and global challenges.
Registration:
- Visit the site imaginecup.com and register as instructed.
- Submission requirements and deadlines may vary from region to region.
Eligibility: Individuals who meet the following requirement at the time of entry are eligible to enter the competition:
- He/She is at least 16 years of age and is actively enrolled as a student at an educational institution that grants high-school or college/university (or equivalent) degrees at the time of entry.
- He/She is NOT a resident of Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, and the Region of Crimea.
- His/Her business has not received any external funding of more than USD 50,000.
- He/She has not used paid employee’s assistance to get entry in Imagine Cup.
- He/She is not an employee or intern of Microsoft Corporation or an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary.
- He/She is not involved in the execution or administration of this Competition in any way.
- You are not an immediate family member (parent, sibling, spouse/domestic partner, child) or household member of a Microsoft employee, an employee of a Microsoft subsidiary, or a person involved in any part of the administration and execution of this Competition.
- If you have previously competed in imagine cup you are still eligible to enter the competition but the entry submitted should be substantially unique and new.
Teams and mentors:
- Students can compete individually or as a team of up to 4 eligible members.
- Team members may come from different academic institutions and different countries.
- Each team or individual can have mentors from academic institutions, not-for-profit organizations, or private companies. They must enlist their roles prior to the contest.
- Teams may have assistance with their project from additional students beyond the four-team members. But only the team members will be eligible for the prizes and get an invitation to any of the ceremonies.
Rounds of Competition:
- Epic Challenge: This is an optional round. In this round participants are needed to pitch their idea, give a project plan, tell what they want to accomplish, gauge their users, and their needs, and decide how to create a market for their project to make enough money to support their project. Students need to submit a project proposal and a 3 minute-long presentation video in this round.
- Round 1(Online Semifinals and/or Local Events): If the country your team competes in holds a Local Event for the Competition, Round 1 will be governed by your local event rules. In a round, 1 participant can choose from the four competition categories (earth, education, health, lifestyle) to build their project. You might be required to provide a project proposal, presentation video(3 mins), software usable by the judges, and software instruction document on how to use your software. No more than 48 teams will advance to round 2.
- Round 2(World Finals): All teams who advance to round 2 will be invited to participate in the virtual world finals event. This round involves a Live Presentation of your project to a panel of judges at the World Finals and working proof of Software for a live demo evaluation by the judges. The judges at the World Finals event will choose the top team from each of the four categories in each Region. There will be a total of 12 winning teams.
- Round 3(World Championship): All teams who advance to round 2 will be invited to participate in a virtual world championship event. All competitors must have the software working proof of their project for demo evaluation and will need to give a live presentation to the judges.
Prizes:
- Three teams selected as winners in the epic challenge will receive 1,000 USD, to be divided equally among each member of the team.
- Every team that advances to round 2 will receive Microsoft Azure Credits* and mentoring from a Microsoft employee i.e. Startup Advocate or Cloud Advocate.
- The three teams selected to advance to Round 3 will receive USD 5,000, to be divided equally among each officially registered member of
the Team(mentors not eligible) and Microsoft Azure Credits* - The rest of the teams will receive 2,500 USD, to be divided equally among each officially registered member of the Team and Microsoft Azure Credits*
- The world championship winner will receive 100,000 USD, to be divided equally among each officially registered member of
the Team, Microsoft Azure Grant* and mentorship call with Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella. - The two runner-up teams will get 20,000 USD.
