[ابوالسين]

Alsalamu Alaikum,

You are invited to volunteer with ITdigest to help university and high school students in saudi arabia to participate in the ‘Imagine Cup 2009’ world competition

The Event:

Many of you may have already heard of Imagine Cup. It is An international contest for university students organized by Microsoft.

Imagine Cup 2009 finals will be in Egypt and it will have the theme of 'Solving the World's Most Difficult Problems'. The contest will have many categories, including
· Software Design
· Embedded Development
· Game Programming
· Robotics and Algorithms
· IT Challenge
· Mash up
· Short Film
· Photography
· Design

our main focus will be on software design part in addition to embedded development and game programming,

You can get an introduction and more information about this contest from the following website,
http://imaginecup.com/Competition/Overview.aspx

This year in Saudi Arabia, Microsoft decided to make it a national event. Therefore, they got the support of Ministry of Higher Education and King Abdulaziz Foundation for the Gifted (Mawhibah). ITdigest was recommended as a professional community to be involved in promoting this contest in Saudi Universities.

we had a discussion with Mr. Motasem Ayash (Academic Development Program Manager in Microsoft Arabia) and we noted the following points:

Microsoft Arabia Goals:
Microsoft's goal is to raise the skills and competencies in the local software economy market including increasing Independent software vendor index for Saudi Arabia
They also want to help Saudi finalists be in a better position to compete on the world level by providing them with resources and guidance.
(of course Microsoft also have their goals as company branding, public relationships, hunting for talents, etc.)

ITdigest Role:
We are asked to provide a pool of skilled IT specialists who will receive training from Microsoft to mentor students participating in the contest
We may also help in running awareness sessions in universities encouraging students to participate in the contest
Moreover, we may coordinate with university student clubs or computer clubs to provide them will needed resources (including books, DVDs, training in Game programming, Mobile device programming and software design)

Mentors Rols:

- Subscribe as mentor in Imagine Cup Website
- Can be assigned one or many teams (based on his preference)
- Will provide help and guidance for the team with regard to
o Selecting and refining the idea (e.g. taking its feasibility and marketability into account)
o Give advice in planning the project
o Provide technical advice and help solve problems
o Give advice on presenting the project after its done
- The mentor involvement with the team should be around 2 hours weekly
after all the team should do the project, the mentor should only provide GUIDANCE and EXPERIENCE
For more information about mentor role check this link
http://imaginecup.com/Support/MentorResources.aspx


Dates:
Submission for the local contest should be done by 30th of April 2009 (a major event will be held in Jeddah)
The final contest will be in the summer of 2009

What's in it for the society
· Help university students be better innovators
· Help local participants be better contenders at the worlds finals
· Help local software economy have higher potential for entrepreneurship (more winners, more entrepreneurs)
· Help mid career professionals (such as ourselves) gain skills in terms of mentoring, leadership, as well as technical experience in mobile commuting, game programming, software design, etc.
· Help Solve the World's Most Difficult Problems J

What's in it for you:
Apart from the joy of helping students
· Microsoft will provide the volunteers with resources and training of their choice from MS technologies (SharePoint, enterprise project management, BizTalk, EBS, windows servers, XNA studio, SQL Server, Windows CE programming, embedded programming, etc.)
· The mentors of the winning team will have the opportunity to join the teams to the world finals
· Mr. Ayash promised to be involved personally with our guys to help them improving their careers
· Gifts and/or Compensation (to be agreed on, anyone interested in Xboxes or Surface Computers)
· Certificates of participations and recognition

What's in it for the community
· Microsoft will provide technical resources to this community (software, training material, etc., could be used to build a powerful website)
· ITdigest logo will be placed in the Imagine Cup website and marketing material (which gives us a lot of exposure and recognition)
· There will be support for the group volunteers team activities
· We will be able to reach out for an important target group for us which is university students
· Microsoft also wants to partner with us on the long term in their IT Academy Initiative

We need both male and female volunteers, from all regions

contacts
If you are interested in helping and if you have any idea of how we can help please contact

Muhammad Amer Arman
ITdigest Community VP
Email: Muhammad.arman@itdigest.org
Tel: 0506823685

Mr. Hossam Al-Fraih
ITdigest Acting GM
Email: hossam.alfraih@itdigest.org
Tel: 0505126197

Ms. Hana Al-Anezy
ITdigest Female Volunteers Leader - Riyadh
Email: hana.alenzi@itdigest.org