The RubeTube: Imagine Cup Philippines 2007

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March 19, 2007

Imagine Cup Philippines 2007

I was invited by Dr. Rodrigo to be a mentor for the Ateneo teams joining in this year's Imagine Cup; more specifically, to the three teams joining the Software Design invitational. As a participant in the in IC 2004 (finalist in Brazil) and IC 2005 (didn't make the finals), I was more than happy to contribute what I can to the teams: project ideas, technical expertise, and lessons learned from the contest.

The theme of this year's Imagine Cup is "Imagine a world where technology enables a better education for all." Pretty tough theme, in my opinion. I had but one decent idea and it didn't quite pass the "for all" clause. If you'd like to help us out (Atenean or not), email me at punzki@gmail.com and I'll be glad to pass along your idea to the group.

As a mentor, I attended the Imagine Cup Philippines launch party last Saturday night at the Hard Rock Cafe in Glorietta 3. I got to meet the teams and share some of my ideas. I'm pretty excited about the students; they've got loads of potential and I can't wait to see what they come up with. (And the food at the party was good, too!) The party also brought back some bad memories which I shall leave unmentioned in this blog entry.

One of the activities was a game where each table was given a sheet of Manila paper and a couple of crayons and was asked to draw a symbol that represented Korea (South Korea, the site of the finals). Our table's symbol was easily the best among the entries. How could you lose with the geekiest Korean symbol possible: a poorly drawn "screenshot" of Starcraft, which is like Korea's national sport or something (for 7 years now!). For our efforts, we drew huge laughs from the judges and I scored a brand new paperback copy of Writing Secure Code ($32.99 at Amazon.com). Sweet! The others in our group either got that, or Code Complete, which I already have.

The whole Starcraft thing was my idea, but Wil Li (a CS freshman) did most of the hard work. I wish I'd taken a picture of our drawing, but I guess you'll just have to settle for a picture of the book cover:

Labels: :D, books, contests, Imagine Cup

Posted at 10:00 PM

About me

Mark Punzalan
a.k.a. "Punzki"
Location: Redmond, WA
Occupation: Softie

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