Microsoft may recruit at student tech event

With the India finals of the Imagine Cup, the international student technology competition scheduled for May, Microsoft India is looking at the event as an opportunity to find potential recruits.

The company is going through technology innovations and ideas from 12,000 individual applicants and 1,500 teams for the cup from across the country and has decided to recruit students with innovative and feasible projects.

Some 11 teams have been selected for the India finals this year, including students from the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DAIICT), Gandhinagar.

The college was the national winner last year and represented India in the world finals. The theme this year is, 'using technology for better education systems' where the team of three from DAIICT, registered under the name of Blue Leaf has come out with a software on personalised information management system for the contest.

A member from Blue Leaf, Deepak Jagdish, who represented India in the Imagine Cup last year and finished in the international top 12 says that the focus is on simple yet feasible of the project design.

"This year, the competition has received participation from over 100 countries as compared to 50 countries last year making it one of the most sought-after global student events in the world. In the past, we have seen some truly remarkable solutions being created during the course of Imagine Cup and are therefore looking at hiring fresh talents who will be evaluated during the various stages by a panel," said Tarun Gulati, GM, Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft India.

Last year, Microsoft picked up a participant from the coding contest, an IIT Madras graduate to work with Bill Gates based on his project which was about technology to bring about better health at the Imagine Cup, and will be looking at innovative ideas on education this time, added Gulati. The global finals would be held in August in Seoul.

Competing categories at the national and international level this year are software design, embedded development, web development, Project Hoshimi, which is a fantasy project, IT Challenge, algorithm, photography, short film and interface design.

Another reason why the number of participants have been a rising trend in the last two-three years is the participation of British Telecom.

In association with Microsoft, BT has come out with a joint project - the Imagine Cup Innovation Accelerator.

Under the collaboration, winners of the Imagine Cup software design are propelled into the next stage of developing their innovative ideas as a business.

Teams selected for the Innovation Accelerator programme receive technical support and business coaching for their projects.