Continuation from part 1, this is part 2 of our journey through 2016 Microsoft Imagine Cup: Big Idea Challenge. If you haven’t read part 1.
In this blog post, our journey continues with the other two Microsoft Imagine Cup Big Idea Challenges.
Microsoft Imagine Cup Big Idea: Plan Challenge
As our Microsoft Imagine Cup Big Idea Challenge journey continues, we participated in the Microsoft Imagine Cup Big Idea: Plan Challenge. For this challenge, we had to come up with a document drafting out a plan for our idea. Somewhat like a project blueprint. Things that we were required to be included into our plan were concept, target audience, research, business model, and core technologies. We had a brainstorming session and came up with various ideas to be included in our plan. Daniel and I tagged team to draft out the document.
The document may seem simple and short. However, this document contains all the ideas that we carefully thought of and planned to execute. We leverage on our family and mentor to be our draft-reader and critic to improve our document before submitting.
In our concept section, we first talked about the realness of visual impairment on a global scale. Citing World Health Organization to solidify our claims. Next, we introduced the BAWA Cane and its potential features. Notably, features that could solve or mitigate challenges faced by the visually impaired. Then, in our target audience section, we identified visually impaired who are in their working years living in cities. After that, research was carried out to identify our competitors and build up domain knowledge. Furthermore, we conducted interviews with visually impaired to gather early feedback to validate our idea. The business model section roughly explains our revenue stream and how our customers can get our product. Finally, the core technology section lists down the technology to make this idea happen.
On 7 December 2015, the winners were announced on Imagine Cup Official Blog. Once again, as we anxiously scrolled down the page, optimistically hoping that we will emerge as the winner of the World Citizenship category, we found out that we were honorably mentioned; one of the top 10 teams in the world. TWICE! Even though we failed to emerge as the winner, we promised ourselves to push on as we still have much to learn.
Judge feedback on our plan
Microsoft Imagine Cup recruit judges from all over the world. They work for many different companies, not just Microsoft. Some are faculty members but most are technology professionals. All volunteer their time to evaluate projects thoughtfully in the hopes of helping students improve their work and build a bright future.
Among the feedback that we’ve gotten are:
“Looking forward to watch your incredible project evolve!” — Microsoft Imagine Cup: Big Idea Plan Challenge judge.
“I believe the concept is exceptional and creating the hardware/software is quite doable. I wish you every success, this has a great potential.” — Microsoft Imagine Cup: Big Idea Plan Challenge judge.
Part 3 of our Microsoft Imagine Cup Challenge click here.