Masa's Opening Ceremony of Imagine Cup in NY

For me, the Opening Ceremony of Imagine Cup was....... just unimaginable....
Students from truly all over the world has gathered to one place, here, New York.

And everyone is truly the winner
who are enthusiastic for solving the world toughest problem.

And Steve Ballmer has come!!
I was so inspired by his passion!!

For me, the most impressive speech of this opening ceremony was
the one by Jeffery Sachs.
He told us about "assignment", which our generation should challenge.
His speech made me think about what I should do now, and in the future
for the next generation.

The Opening Ceremony was..... awesome....
I'm really looking forward to what's happening in Imagine Cup 2011 in NY.

Help Illiterate People by Using EasySMS - The Switzerland Team for Imagine Cup NY Final

Give your attention to "People's Choice Award" for this team!!!

Click Here to Vote this Team!!!

Even though today we are facing such an information society, about 800 million illiterate people - mostly in developing countries - are currently excluded from this communication medium. They often need to have some difficulties even when they want to express some simple but lovely emotions such as “I miss you”, or “I love you”. 

In order for those illiterate people to have a really easy tool to communicate with each other, Texting4All, the team from Switzerland, has come up with an innovative solution by using the technology of Microsoft.  

The below is about the interview I’ve done with them for their project.

What is your project is about??

Our project is creating an innovative solution to improve communication between people, to reduce illiteracy, and to help developing countries by using our EasySMS application.

How does it work??

We use EasySMS application, that is, specially arranged SMS application on mobile phones. Since most illiterates live in rural areas in which mobile phone coverage and ownership is growing rapidly, people there can use SMS in very cheap price or even for free. The application has mainly four features for those illiterate people.

1. Allowing illiterate people to “read” all the SMSs they receive thanks to the available text-to-speech access on Windows Phone 7
2. Helping them to understand the meaning of each word of the SMSs they receive
• By playing the message in “Karaoke” style
• By making each word of the message a playable button
  (The users can click on each word to hear it)
3. Composing SMS in unique ways
• By using icons with sound support
  (and these icons are transformed into text messages
  when sent to the recipient)
• By using SMS re-composition from previous SMSs
  (That is, each word of previous message can be played
  and re-used through simple drag and drop into new messages)
4. Allowing them to be able to search and manage contacts visually through visual traits of avatars

What was the inspiration for your entry?

Our inspiration started during one of our courses at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the name of the institute where they are studying): "Personal interaction studio". We had to come up with an idea and create a prototype of a mobile application that could help illiterate people in their every-day life. We received interviews conducted in India by researchers from the EPFL’s Media and Design lab with farmers. The interviews revolved around the main problems they rural farmers are facing. We also watched lots of videos about the life in rural areas there.

Later, we visited a school for illiterate people in Switzerland: "Lire et écrire” and met illiterate people and their teachers. We interviewed a number of them and realized that none of the existing mobile technologies were suitable for them - since almost all phone’s menus are based on "text". A woman from Morocco was particularly touching. She arrived in Lausanne five years ago. She didn't know how to speak French and she was illiterate. Her daughter was still in Morocco. She missed her daughter a lot: "It is very hard for me to keep in touch with her, I cannot go back to Morocco very often because flights are expensive. The only way for me to hear from her is to call her. I call her every Sunday at 3pm. However, it is very expensive and not very convenient for all of us because we need to cancel all the plans we have every Sunday in order to call each other." We wondered if she would like to send SMS to her daughter and she immediately answered: "I would love to. But it is far too complicated for me ... If I could send her only 'I miss you', it would be wonderful..."

Moreover, for almost all the people we interviewed, it was impossible to manage a contact list on their mobile phones: they identified people through their previous calls, the last two digits of the phone numbers or the country codes of the phone numbers. We discovered that just near to us, in one of the richest countries of the world. These encounters raised our awareness about the needs illiterates have. From this time, we decided to create an easy application with which illiterate people could send SMSs and manage their contacts without any problem."

Since now that it has been very important to communicate with each other by using technologies like mobile phones, the gap between literate and illiterate has become increasing. In such a situation, their challenge sounds so important that more and more people should pay attention to the problem, in my opinion.

Big Challenge for Malaria – The New Zealand Team for Imagine Cup NY Final

Give your attention to "People's Choice Award" for this team!!!
Click Here to Vote this Team!!!

Malaria is still one of the biggest problems in the world, as well as known as one of MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). Every year, it affects 300 million people around the world with up to 1 million deaths. Even though there have been lots of actions to deal with this tough problem, the situation is still hard.

However, even in such a difficult time, we can see people who are enthusiastic for solving those world toughest problems in the world by using the power of technology. This time let me introduce a New Zealand Team for Imagine Cup NY Final who are challenging Malaria by using the Technology of Microsoft.

OneBuzz, the name of the team, uses innovative technology to revolutionize the fight against malaria and give the energy of life to people. The below is about the interview I’ve done with them.


How does it work??
OneBuzz is a system that pulls together disparate datasets including satellite imagery, text messages and government health, climate and GIS datasets. OneBuzz utilizes the information in the data sets to identify areas around the world that are most at risk of malarial mosquito infestation based on recent rainfall patterns and past experience. Once those areas have been identified, OneBuzz helps optimize stockpiling, transportation and deployment of anti-malarial measures such as nets, vaccines and insecticide sprays.


What was the inspiration for your entry??
For the OneBuzz team, this fight against malaria is personal. Vinny’s mother had malaria while she was pregnant and Vinny had it as well when he was growing up. The team saw Imagine Cup as a great platform to showcase that technology from the developed countries could be adapted and used effectively to combat malaria in developing nations.


What do you think the future of your project??
The Imagine Cup is only the beginning of our journey in the fight against malaria; we are committed to making this idea into a reality. Our aim is to conduct field trials of our system in India over the coming months, while continuously improving our solution with the help of leading researchers in malaria epidemiology. Among them is Dr. Nick Douglas from Oxford University and Dr. John Marshall from Imperial College London, with whom we are further developing our algorithms to help fight malaria.

Since the problem is so complicated it can be solved only when a variety of organizations, technologies, and most importantly, people can cooperate with each other effectively to challenge the problem. In my opinion, the team is on the right track by challenging a huge global problem, having a strong idea, executing this with people and organisations in the field, and has the passion to make this a reality.

Imagine Cup Social Media Team – MSPs Head to New York City

Good news! I’ve been selected to attend the Microsoft Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals in New York City this July as part of the Microsoft Student Partner Social Media Team. For those of you who are not already aware of the event, the Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition. More than 400 students from around the world will participate in the worldwide finals event and represent their countries.

As a member of the Social Media Team, I will be responsible for raising awareness about the Imagine Cup and helping to tell the story of innovative students around the world. To learn more about the event, be sure to follow @imaginecup on Twitter and Microsoft Imagine Cup on Facebook. Also, I’ll be posting to this blog, sharing news and updates from my Facebook page and Twitter account.

I will be joined in New York City by 24 other Microsoft Student Partners who will be part of the social media team. Follow all of the MSPs on their journey to New York City by following this Twitter list.

Please give your attention to Imagine Cup NY :)

Machiya-Party with Kinect, Brand-New Game of Microsoft

That was about a half year ago, but still one of the most enjoyable memory for me in my student era.

That was, "Machiya-Party" with Kinect. That was (probably) the first experiment ever in the world.

No word is needed, please check!!

I hope to have such a fun again in near future :)
Cannot wait !!

Restart my blog in English

Since I've got more and more international friends of mine as I become older, I guess it's time to restart my blog in English.

I hope that here can be a platform where I can share something meaningful and keep in touch with you guys. See you soon.