Wela's Blog

For the fourth consecutive year, the Sri Lankan leg of the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2008 came to a grand close on the 22nd of April, at the Galadari Hotel Colombo, when the best of the six software design finalists bagged the championship title. Team Sasrutha from the University of Moratuwa, is the lucky team to head out to Paris in July this year, to compete at the Global Finals.

This year the competition was bigger and more challenging than the last couple of years. Running the event was a tedious task as there were like a zillion things that I had to look into. Thanks a ton to my colleagues and GPR for the support.

This year the judging panel was headed by Professor P.W. Epasinghe, Chairman ICTA. Other panel members were Mr. Harsha Purasinghe, Chief Operating Officer, Microimage (Pvt) Ltd., Mr. Ranil Pathirana, Finance Director, Hidramani Group of Companies. Mr. P. Semasinghe, Director – Natural Resources, Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. Mr. Sriyan de Silva Wijeyeratne, Country Manager, Microsoft Sri Lanka.

WINNER: Team Sasrutha from university of Moratuwa, Faculty of Information Technology and Faculty of Engineering Project: Haritha Prayathna	1st Runner-Up Team Gagana from Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology. Project: EDUMS	2nd Runner-Up Team Will Power from university of Moratuwa, Faculty of Engineering. Project: Cleaning License Management System
GreenTeam taking a small break after the tiring work. They did a fantastic work at the event supporting me to run the event smoothly. Myself and everybody @ Microsoft are highly impressed by the contributions made.	This year we had over 700 registrations from Sri Lanka. most of them were present @ the event. Bunch of them having fun during the entertainment by B&S. As usual the fun gang is in the back rows :)	Entertainment from the university of Jayawardenapura Management Faculty students added some great color to the event. Thanks to Lasith and Dushan for organizing this. i'm sure everybody enjoyed this.

I should specially mention the 2 Short film teams and the game development teams who made it to the second round. Team Tear from University of Colombo School of Computing and Team Genes|Pictures from Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology made it to the second round in Short Film. Now! if you remember both these teams made it to the second round last year also and team Team made it to the world 6 finalists. Teams DreamX and Team Agies Studios from Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology made it to the second round in Game Development. These 4 teams have few more days to submit the second round entry. Best wishes for all 4 teams ... they are just one step closer to bring Sri Lanka to the world finals. Woo! Hoo!

What's next ...

Software category winning team have already started preparations for the Imagine Cup world festival. Other category teams have to work on the round 2 entries.

Imagine Cup 2009 will be announced within the next couple of months. Be prepared ... it's going to be bigger, better and more challenging.

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As most of you might already know Imagine Cup 2008 Sri Lanka is taking place on 22nd April. Things in my schedule is really busy and i'm pretty sure its the same for all the team members. If you are interested in attending the event please feel free to goto the website (www.imaginecup.lk) and request for an invitation. Date: 22nd April 2008 Time: 2.00 PM Onwards Venue: Grand Ballroom, Hotel Galadari, Colombo 01