{"51024":{"#nid":"51024","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Imagine Cup Winners \u0027MashUp\u0027 UN Millennium Goals","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EImagine no hunger. Or poverty. Imagine a sustainable world, with universal literacy, complete gender equality, and healthy, well-fed children. Imagine every woman receiving prenatal care. Imagine no one infected with HIV. Imagine nations in harmony.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe United Nations took these utopian ideas seriously enough to name them as its eight Millennium Development Goals. This caught the eye of Microsoft Corp., which in 2002 issued a challenge to the students of the world: Let\u2019s make these happen.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAnd the imagining began.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn 2003, Microsoft sponsored the first Imagine Cup competition, in which computing and technology students were invited to submit innovations in a single category: software design. The big condition? Entries had to, in some way, further the realization of the UN\u0027s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In later years, the Imagine Cup added categories such as game design, short film, embedded development and others.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThis year, a pair of Georgia Tech-educated students calling themselves Team Curious managed to imagine something just a bit better than any other team in the world. On July 7, in the land of the Sphinx, Team Curious was named the winner in the MashUp category. Some 59,000 students representing 142 countries competed in Imagine Cup 2009, and Microsoft invited 148 finalist teams to Cairo.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETeam Curious won for its Web application \u0022MDG Actors.\u0022 The site allows users to click on any of the eight MDGs, then instantly crawls the Web and displays news and other information grouped under more specific topic headings. The mashup highlights names of individual persons, and users can scroll over those people\u0027s names for pop-up menus of additional information (such as the individual\u0027s Wikipedia page, the latest relevant posts on Twitter, and other links).\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBehind Team Curious are Kathy Pham, who earned both her bachelor\u2019s (2007) and master\u0027s (2009) degrees from the College of Computing, and undergraduate Marc Par\u00e9, a mechanical engineering major. Not only did they come up with MDG Actors, Pham and Par\u00e9 also maintained an active blog devoted to Team Curious, and they used it to present their \u0022manifesto\u0022:\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022MDG Actors is our first hi-tech composition,\u0022 they wrote. \u0022It is as much programming as it is story-telling, empathy and design. It leverages the power of emerging Web technology to provide an interactive, playful experience. Its goal is inspiration, and it provides the jumping off points for turning that inspiration into action. By itself, our website won\u2019t overturn the \u0027rusting DNA\u0027 our generation faces, but we hope it at least provides the same glimmer of the future for you as it does for us. It is one of our first steps in organizing our new world for a brighter tomorrow.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIndeed, it was enough not only to get them to Cairo as the only U.S. representative in the MashUp category, but also to make them the only U.S. team to win a category. \u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Travel and perks aside, it was my first time ever being in a room of so many motivated, creative students from all over the world who want to use technology to change the world,\u0022 Pham said of the experience. \u0022The energy in the presentation rooms was amazing.\u00a0 It was great to exchange ideas with people, discuss how our project can advance in the future, and see why and how the other teams created their technologies.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHaving a few days in Cairo wasn\u0027t bad either. No stranger to international travel\u2014she spent a year and a half in France at the Georgia Tech-Lorraine campus while working toward her master\u0027s degree, as well as a summer in Barcelona (Spain) as an undergraduate\u2014Pham relished her time among the pyramids. Par\u00e9 also attended Georgia Tech-Lorraine in fall 2008.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022While other [Imagine Cup category finalists] required a devotion of 24 to 36 hours while in Cairo, the MashUp competition was Web-based, so we already did all of our work in advance,\u0022 she said. \u0022We had a 30-minute conversation with one of the judges and were told to go enjoy Cairo. Therefore, we had much time to meet other competitors, enjoy presentations, lie by the pool of the five-star hotel and take a trip into the city.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Our travels include organized trips to Giza to see the pyramids and Sphinx, a \u0027felucca\u0027 ride down the Nile, and a visit to the Bazaar,\u201d Pham said. \u0022The actual awards ceremony was held on a stage in front of the pyramids!\u00a0 I know all the students\u2014myself included\u2014were stunned.\u00a0 It was a wonderful culture experience.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u0022MDG Actors,\u0022 a web application that crawls the Internet in real time to search for the latest information on the United Nations\u0027 eight Millennium Development Goals, was the only U.S. category winner in July\u0027s Imagine Cup finals in Cairo, Egypt. Source: Office of Communications\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27154","created_gmt":"2010-02-09 21:39:57","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:04:23","author":"Louise Russo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2009-07-21T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2009-07-21T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"51025":{"id":"51025","type":"image","title":"Team Curious\u2014Marc Pare (second from left) and Kathy Pham (center)\u2014hangs out with members of the Brazilian MashUp team during the 2009 Imagine Cup finals, held in Cairo, Egypt, July 3-7.","body":null,"created":"1449175449","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:44:09","changed":"1475894473","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:41:13","alt":"Team Curious\u2014Marc Pare (second from left) and Kathy Pham (center)\u2014hangs out with members of the Brazilian MashUp team during the 2009 Imagine Cup finals, held in Cairo, Egypt, July 3-7.","file":{"fid":"146047","name":"team-curious_brazil.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/team-curious_brazil_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/team-curious_brazil_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":0,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/team-curious_brazil_0.jpg?itok=Sg8_Z4mE"}}},"media_ids":["51025"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}