Posts Tagged ‘ Imagine Cup ’

MangoBunnies – Using Technology to Make Women Feel Safer

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

After Team Mentor Erin ‘Ed’ Donohue was our first guest blogger, KissMyCountry had the chance to meet the MangoBunnies  at the Microsoft Imagine Cup US finals in Washington, DC on April 26, 2010.  The team placed second in Software.  MangoBunnies Malisa Vongskul and Ashley Myers are attending college in Indiana while mentor Ed Donohue, who graduated from college last year, is working for a defense contractor in Colorado.  They are a dynamic trio, and we know you’ll appreciate the use of their talents and creativity to make women safer.  Enjoy!

A Well-Prepared Presentation and Rapt Attention By The Judges
The Imagine Cup challenges young adults to use technology to solve the toughest problems in the world, and the MangoBunnies rose to the challenge as the team faced the judges.  Malisa Vongskul began while Ashley Myers kept slides moving from a laptop.  “I’d like you to meet two people,” Malisa said as she pointed to photos of a young woman attacked while going home from a prom, and a young man who’d committed a crime just hours before in the same area.  As Malisa cited statistics about the high likelihood of young women in the US to be a victim of violent crime, you could hear a pin drop.  The judges were motionless, listening.  A tough problem and a well-designed solution.  Thank you, Mango Bunnies.  You go girls, I thought.

Using a Cell Phone To Feel Safer
The MangoBunnies have developed a mobile application using GPS technology via cell phone to help women to be aware of recent crimes in areas they frequent.  LightAlert combines information from police reports with information sent by individuals in real time to create targeted broadcasts.  Women can use the broadcasts to check areas they’re in, allowing them to circumvent places that appear dangerous or questionable.   With LightAlert women can feel safer using something that’s with them all the time – their mobile phone. 

The idea for LightAlert came after the team heard about a program in development for women in Africa, based on access to a web site.  Thinking about young women in the US, the MangoBunnies knew they needed something that would give young women instant access to knowledge about crimes.  An application for the cell phone would be best – young women carry their cell phones everywhere and all the time.  Smart thinking, and LightAlert began to take shape.

Turning a Judge’s Question Into New Ideas
When it came time for questions from the judges – a fairly intimidating group – Malisa and Ashley responded confidently and in detail, and turned the judges’ questions into an active exchange – more of a conversation than a Q&A.  One judge asked if the MangoBunnies were going to create a system like eBay where individuals can achieve higher status as a known and reliable informant.  “We hadn’t, but that’s a really good idea!” said Malisa.  The MangoBunnies are open, using good ideas from others to make LightAlert as useful as possible.  I actually think Yelp’s Elite Squad is a better example, although the judge made a good recommendation, and I’ve got a question myself.  When is this in Beta?

Foursquare, Gowalla, Take Note
MangoBunnies, get ready for the world to come knocking at your door.  Geolocation’s been all the rage this year.  It’s the next everything.  But there’s debate.  The privacy issue is huge – do we really want to reveal our physical location to anyone?  Yet the MangoBunnies – young women at school in Indiana – have created a way to make us feel safer, not more vulnerable, using geolocation technology.  They’ve put control of our privacy and our safety right in our hands – literally.  Foursquare, Gowalla, take note.  The MangoBunnies have got some great ideas and you might want to reach out.

MangoBunnies, with LightAlert and CAMRA, the project that brought you to last year’s Imagine Cup finals, you’ve made a great start.  We know that Ashley will head to Seattle as she graduates this year.  Malisa, enjoy your last summer as a college student – you’ll be heading somewhere exciting next year for sure!  Ed, all the best as you continue to work in Colorado.  We want to stay in touch and see what you do next – we know you’re just getting started!

This post is part of a series related to Microsoft’s Imagine Cup.  To learn more about the Light Alert mobile application please visit their web site.  KissMyCountry also just published a blog post about Team Blob,  the other all-female team competing in the Imagine Cup US finals this year, and a post about the Gaming finalists by Mr. K.  We will continue to follow the Imagine Cup as the international finals in Warsaw, Poland approach in July!

 

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The Imagine Cup – Gaming to Save the Planet

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

Team Level13 Competes at the Imagine Cup

What do you get when you combine students, software, and a mission to make the world a better place?  You get The Imagine Cup.  A creation of Microsoft, the Imagine Cup is a global competition that gives students an opportunity to test their programming skills to solve the world’s biggest problems.  As half of our mission here at Kiss My Country is to Save the Planet, we were ecstatic to attend this very inspiring event at the Newseum in Washington DC on April 26th.  Two categories in the competition were Software Design and Game Design with a focus towards the U.N. Millennium Development Goals

Many of the entrants to the competition focused on the “Environmental Sustainability” category which goes to show that Green is not just a fad, but a real concern of our brightest young people. An encouraging sign for sure.

Being a lifelong videogamer, I was naturally drawn to the great ideas for games created by the finalists. You can see the USA winners here.  From the University of Houston, team Level13 created a game called Antitoxin Squad. A Windows PC based game, Antitoxin Squad allows players to combat pollution by cultivating plants around the world (also known as bioremediation).  They took 3rd prize in the Game Design category.

Team Ifrit Salsa took 2nd prize for their Robo Recyclers game where players help clean up and sort trash appropriately.  Envision elementary school kids playing this and learning about how to recycle. Great stuff.

Team AwesomeSauce introduces their Nanobots game

Kudos also go out to Team AwesomeSauce out of Tufts University. Focusing on the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of Combating HIV/AIDS and Diseases, they created a playable Xbox 360 2D, top-down, shooter called Nanobots that teaches kids about fighting diseases and illnesses such as cancer and the flu. The Nanobots enter various parts of the body like the nasal passage and lungs and blast the baddies like cancer and the swine flu. The graphics were simple yet very well done and fun. As they demoed the game, I found myself wanting to grab the controller and shoot up the “swine flu” guys infecting the lungs level of the game. Think Asteroids mixed with Centipede in body part shaped levels and you can picture the game.  “There are studies that show that kids who have cancer, when they play games they recover faster and better because they are happier. So, you know, let them fight their own disease,” explained Cobin Dopkeen, lead game designer and programmer.  Truly an “awesome” design and a really inspiring group.

For a topic well covered here at Kissmycountry.com and at our friends on our blogroll, Team Darkwing Duck out of Golden West College built in two short months the beginnings of a great educational game that highlights plastic waste in our oceans.  You know a couple of guys out of Huntington Beach aka Surf City USA would want to call attention to the plight of our oceans. Love it.

If you are a game designer or want to be, check out the US Imagine Cup website for more info.  It’s a great opportunity to test your skills, and to gain incredibly valuable guidance, exposure and experience in a short amount of time. Let’s give props to Microsoft for using their powers for good and inspiring students to do the same.

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The Microsoft Imagine Cup and the MangoBunnies – Solving Tough Problems With Technology

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

“Malisa, Ashley (my fellow MangoBunnies), and I decided to enter the Imagine Cup to have an impact on something more than our grades.  Whatever we created would benefit more people than just us.” – Erin “Ed” Donohue

KissMyCountry welcomes Erin “Ed” Donohue as our first guest blogger in a post about Microsoft’s Imagine Cup.  It’s an honor to post Erin’s thoughts as she travels to the US finals in Washington, DC, and as Microsoft  features her in an article encouraging U.S. students to study technology.  “Ed” is the mentor for Team MangoBunnies, who in 2009 became the first all-female finalists for the Imagine Cup.  “Ed” was a team member then, but as a college graduate she is now the team’s mentor.  This year they’ve designed a mobile application for women.  There are many ways to save the planet, and this is definitely one of them.  We’ll let “Ed” tell you about it in her own words.  Enjoy!

I was asked to do a guest post for KissMyCountry.com about the Imagine Cup and using technology to help solve social issues.  I love the Imagine Cup and I love to talk about it, so I jumped at the chance!  The Imagine Cup is a Microsoft-sponsored technology competition for students.  It asks students to solve the world’s toughest problems using technology.  “The world’s toughest problems” can sound pretty intimidating, so checking out the United Nations Millennium Development Goals is a great place to start thinking about which tough problem you want to tackle.

I’ve been involved in the Imagine Cup for two years, last year as a competitor and this year as a mentor.  I’m a part of Team MangoBunnies.  In 2009 we created CAMRA (Computer Assisted Medication Regimen Adherence) which is an alarm and reminder application for a mobile device that helps a user remember to take his/her medication.  CAMRA targets HIV/AIDS patients because of their complex medication regimens and the high adherence rate that accompanies those regimens.  Click here for more information about CAMRA.  This year Team MangoBunnies created Light Alert, a mobile application for women that uses GPS technology to warn the user that she may be entering an unsafe area.  The application aims to empower the user through information and make the user more aware of her surroundings in order to stay safe.  Please vote for Light Alert from Team MangoBunnies for the People’s Choice Award (has no impact on the outcome of the Imagine Cup).

Malisa, Ashley (my fellow MangoBunnies), and I decided to enter the Imagine Cup to have an impact on something more than just our grades.  Whatever we created would benefit more people than just us.  We realized we would be working in a project that would span semesters; it would be a dynamic project that could keep evolving and we could keep adding to it.  These are just our reasons for entering the Imagine Cup, but there are many more!

Recently, technology has played a huge part in contributing to the solutions of tough global and social issues.  Through social media, people can connect and rally around a cause and give it global recognition.  In the past year, on Twitter alone, we’ve seen huge numbers of people give support to the earthquake victims of Haiti, people going green for the Iran Elections, and going red for World AIDS Day.  Garnering this much support raises awareness of the issues, encourages discussion, and gets us that much closer to a solution.  Not only does social media technology help solve tough issues, but hardware and software does too.  With modern technological and medical advances, we are able to do so much more.  Technology can be used to affect so many facets of people’s lives, we can use technology to improve the quality of people’s lives, bring them information, distribute supplies more efficiently, the list is endless!

I am honored to be a part of this positive technology movement through the Imagine Cup.  I’ve seen firsthand the innovative and creative student force that drives the Imagine Cup.  I’m constantly astounded and amazed at the new ways students are using technology to help others and improve the world around them.  The Imagine Cup is encouraging this powerful, positive force and giving it a voice. Get involved!

Great post, “Ed” – you fit right in at KissMyCountry and you are welcome to guest post anytime!  Mr K and I will be at the Imagine Cup finals and we look forward to meeting you, the other MangoBunnies and the other finalists! 

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