The 2007 Imagine Cup was by Microsoft Korea during the period of August 5 to 11, 2007 in Seoul. British Telecom supported the event through the Imagine Cup Innovation Accelerator program, a joint project between Microsoft and British Telecom. The Korea IT Times met Kevin Nickel, Director of M&A Integration of British Telecom, to hear the background of this program -- Ed.
Q: It seems that BT doesn't have any relations with the software field or Imagine Cup field. How did British Telecom come to be related with Imagine Cup
A: BT has had a relationship with Microsoft for many years actually. When we learned about the Imagine Cup we thought it was such a good idea that we wanted to get very much involved, very strongly involved. And so for the last three years we have been a sponsor of the Imagine Cup itself, and we provide judges to help in the process for selecting the winners, which is important. But I think every student that comes here is the best in the world. They're the top student groups from every country. So the finalists, everyone coming in, are already very good, so we care about all of them. So starting three years ago we had this idea to do the accelerator. Its been very successful for the last three years, so we will continue to do that.
Q: My second question is about content. What is the concrete content of the Accelerator program
A: What we do in the Accelerator is twofold. The students said they are working on an idea, and they have been working on it for about a year or two in their school. They submit that idea to the Imagine Cup. So one thing we do is to help them to say, well, from taking your idea to the next level can we help them with technology So part of it is we bring a lot of technology experts into the two weeks Accelerator, a very intensive time. So one half is technology, the other half is how do you present the marketing and business part. So there's technology and then there's marketing and business.
Q: What is the plan for BT to develop this Accelerator program further
A: The main reason that BT does this kind of event is really to understand very early the trends that are going to happen in five years, or two years. So part of what we're trying to do is to be very close to the source of innovation. So all the new ideas will be from young students. The next Youtube, or the next Myspace, or the next Google will come from students, and we want to understand what they're thinking about. So our plan basically is to understand those trends so that when we're developing our technology, that it supports those trends.
Q: What do you expect about the results of this Imagine Cup, personally
A: My parents were both teachers. The theme this year is education. I love education topics so for me it's very important. My expectation is, I expect to see a lot of gaming, gaming interfaces, used for and applied to education. I think there will be a lot of focus on user interface and a lot of Web 2.0 type of user interface concepts will be brought into education. I think there's massive amounts of improvement that can happen in the education side. It's right now a very traditional problem, but there are a lot of amazing innovations that will happen here. And for me personally that is a very important topic that I care a lot about so I am very excited about it.
