I have the honor to be an official judge for Microsoft Imagine Cup Final 4 projects in Egypt.

Imagine Cup is an annual competition sponsored and hosted by Microsoft Corp. which brings together young technologists worldwide to help resolve some of the world's toughest challenges. Primarily a software design competition, it enlists teams of four within the high school and collegiate levels to submit software solutions addressing a specifically provided theme. Started in 2002, it has steadily grown in size, where in 2008 210,000 competitors representing over 100 countries competed in the nine Imagine Cup invitationals.

Imagine Cup was in Egypt Last year & I attended the closing ceremony. It was awesome the number and quality of ideas that students all over the world spend time & efforts to solve real problems around the world, for that I am proud to be part of this event!

I will give you a feedback on the updates as we go, follow me on twitter @remon_z & I will give you as real time updates as i can about the contestants.

Back to blogging after organizing & participating in a very successful & exhausting CairoCodeCamp’10 conference. We had the perception that CairoCodeCamp is just a regular Code Camp. It’s a big community event organized by dotnetwork.org user group , the first & biggest offline user group in Egypt.

CairoCodeCamp is the biggest conference dotnetwork is organizing throughout the whole year.

CairoCodeCamp hits multiple birds actually with one stones. It:

• 1. Provides a chance for a large amount of students, professional developers, business owners & software entrepreneurs to meet and socialize, facilitating TONS of opportunities for all participants to help them evolve even more.
• 2. Allows exponentially increasing number of speakers to be in the same place presenting very useful sessions on all of the software’s technical & business aspects, maximizing the learning value for all participants.
• 3. Invites high profile world-class grade speakers to speak at CairoCodeCamp. That gives Egypt a necessary exposure for the global software community and helping us marketing Egypt as a critical Landmark of technology in the Middle East.

CairoCodeCamp’09 was the first big conference we organize. It had 18 sessions presented by 5 domestic speakers & 4 international speakers.

CairoCodeCamp’10 was way bigger. We had more exposure. It had 40 sessions presented by 20 domestic speakers & 7 international speakers.

We have had the best sponsors ever! They have been very helpful in such bad global economy status. For them we are very thankful for helping making this dream come true!

So, we’re talking through the path , but are we there yet ? Not yet! We want more recognition & more people to learn & benefit their society and the world!

We have already started working on CairoCodeCamp’11. Please feel free to contact us through www.CairoCodeCamp.com , if you have any feedbacks, notes, ideas or want to help!

Thank you dotnetwork team, Speakers, all of our sponsors & Big Buddy Society for working as a team, making this event happen!

In my previous post, I talked about BizSpark and the great surprising help coming out from Microsoft to Startups.

Now for Students, you also can start working with authentic Microsoft Products for FREE.

What is Microsoft DreamSpark?

Here’s how it works: if you’re a current university or high school student, you can download professional Microsoft developer, designer, and gaming software through DreamSpark at no charge. Yes, students get to download software at no charge. DreamSpark enables students, like you, to download and use Microsoft tools to unlock your creative potential and set you on the path to academic and career success by advancing your learning in the areas of technical design, technology, math, science, and engineering! It doesn’t matter what classes you’re taking right now, just as long as you’re a current student in a verified, accredited School and use the tools in pursuit of advancing your education in one of these areas.

Joining is also very easy!

Just visit DreamSpark and follow the 3 steps.