Imagine Cup

Imagine Cup is not only a competition! It is a mixture of ideas, excitement, experience, fun, different cultures and much more. It truly is the adventure I’ve wished for so far! Some may feel that now after it’s all over there is nothing but good memories, but I’ll surely argue that Imagine Cup was like a jump start for all of us! Like Dennis Crowley said at the opening ceremony there is no such thing like an overnight success. Everything we do – we have to stick to it, we have to be persistent in our work and follow through our ideas from the start to the end… if there could be any end at all! We all want to be a part of a better world. This is what Imagine Cup is all about.
Another great surprise was Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO. As he says “You have to find something that you can put yourself into heart, body and soul.” That’s the most important thing – you have to believe yourself and because “there’s no substitute for really being tenacious and keeping after those ideas that you are really passionate about”. As Crowley also said – “Don’t give up with whatever you’re working on. There’s always going to be people that tell you they love your stuff and there’s going to be people that tell you they hate your stuff. There’s always going to be people that don’t get it. Just keep in mind that like if you have good ideas, just keep working on them to make them right. If the time is not right now, it might be right in a couple years.”
Well our project Green World was just enough to make us a part of this amazing experience! And we got into the top 5 of all over the world… we must have done a great jobJ! It could have been better but this success came at the right place and time for each of us. And at least we believe now that the world could be a better place. And “this is not meant to be a breast-beating testimony of all that is wrong, and it is not meant for one moment to be a measure of pessimism” said Dr. Jeffrey Sachs – the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia United Nations. ”But it is I think for all of us a wake-up call to the reality of the planet and to the fact that while we feel very comfortable and very lucky and fortunate to be here and to be living in the circumstances that most of us are fortunate to find ourselves, you know that that is but a part of the planet, and you have been the ones to pioneer how to address the challenge that those less fortunate continue to face by the hundreds of millions, and that the planet as a whole will suffer unless we move forward.”

You can’t imagine how much energy and passion I saw in these speakers. They all believed in every single word they say!I do feel that this is the kind of energy that drives our world. This is the passion and excitement that is behind everything we love. Steve Ballmer just couldn’t have said it in a better way

“As we take a look over the next several years, we’re certainly excited about what we’re doing, just like you all came together into project teams and did exciting work and you got excited about it, that’s kind of what we get to do every day at Microsoft. Hey, what’s Windows 8? How do we drive it? What do we make happen? What are the key phenomena? When do we get to release it? How do we make it better, and better and better? Yes, there are some other guys we compete with. Boom we’ve got to do better, and better, and better, and better, and better. It’s pretty exciting, pretty exciting stuff.”

Congrats for the first place winners – team Hermes from Ireland!

Thank you all guys for making us a part of what’s next!

GreenWorld

Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition. It is annually sponsored and hosted by Microsoft.  The idea behind it is that students can and will change the world. It brings together the newest technologies to help resolve some of the world toughest challenges. The Imagine Cup 2011 theme is “Imagine a world where technologies help solve the toughest problems”.

To promote change around the globe competing teams can use the UN Millennium Development Goals as a starting point. In 2000 they were agreed upon 189 nations around the world to be achieved by the year 2015 and encompass universally accepted human rights. Here you can read more about the development goals, and how they all fit in Imagine Cup.

New York, USA is hosting 2011 worldwide finals. GreenWorld is our entry in the tournament and we made it in top 5 in the world! In July in New York we are fighting for the gold!

In next lines I am presenting you our entry. Some aspects and feature are still under development and improvement, but we hope until the end of June it will be the future winner!

First, what is it all about?

GreenWorld is an online multiplayer game, concerning world’s biggest ecological and health problems. It brings you in a world riddled with rubbish and diseases – this is our world, unfortunately. As an online player, you will take part in global partnership, where you help cleaning the surroundings and make people living in harmony with nature from now on. You connect with your friends to take charge of the world and make it a better place.

Your character is either girl or boy, both kids. During the game, you, respectively your character, being still a kid, will learn how to recycle rubbish correctly, valuable information about this process and its feasible effect on nature. Likewise, the kid will constantly come upon interesting facts about our world, animals and nature, as well as positive influence of herbs on human body. Its reasoning faculties will be stimulated with a quiz.

You will earn experience and earn badges that will help you take part in global event for building treatment plant, windmill, solar panel, putting signs, encouraging people to take care of nature, planting a tree and etc.

Depending on you progress in the game, you can connect to other players in the map and work as a team, initiate or join causes supporting nature and human rights.

In GreenWorld your character will be able to communicate with other participants in order to ask for help for a question or, respectively, help a friend to answer a question you may know or correctly recycle rubbish. You can send your friends a message all over the game and you can share your results with him via Facebook.

Playing GreenWorld, you get involved in 2011 International year of Forests Events, announced by the United Nations. Get organized with your friends and contribute to sustainable future of world forests.

Sofia spring cleaning

This initiative started in Estonia in 2007 when several friends decided to unite the efforts of all citizens, business and the country itself to take care of the nature. TOGETHER.

From 4th until April 21st most of the population in Sofia took part in the initiative to clean the city from the rubbish. The start of the campaign was given by the major of the Sofia Yordanka Fandykova. All over these days volunteers handed brochures, rubbish bags and gloves. The sponsors and promoters of the event is the biggest media in Bulgaria – bTV.

Having as many as possible people involved in the campaign helps better  protect the environment in the future, says the major of Sofia.

Every day about 800-900 tons of rubbishes were collected in Sofia. Meanwhile the campaign was held in every town in Bulgaria too.

It was not only for the rubbish, but also for fortification of bird’s nests.

Our team, Green World, also took part in this global cause. Let’s hope in 2012 there will be  less rubbish and better and more efficient processing of it.