Why should I attend a 24 hackathon? 20 000€ that’s why.
Posted: October 24, 2012 Filed under: AppCampus, Contest, Imagine Cup, Store, Students, Windows 8, Windows Phone 7 Leave a comment »
Yesterday AppCampus announced that they would award the best app idea at WOWZAPP with a 20 000€ grant, for the idea to be taken to the Windows Phone platform. So in addition to all the expert developer support, designer support, great fun and a ton of sleepdeprived geeks, you may be able to boost your idea with 20 000€!
WOWZAPP 2012–No Sleep, Live to Code
Posted: October 22, 2012 Filed under: Students, Contest, Imagine Cup, Windows 8, Store 1 Comment »
It’s time to register for the greatest hackathon ever! WOWZAPP will be a chance for you to meet a bunch of fellow developers from around the world, experience the newest devices and amaze the world with your crazy app development skills!
The event is free of charge, we’ll provide you with the training, mentors, food & beverages and a lot of fun activity through the code-night! You don’t need any previous experience with Windows 8 app development, we’ll teach you! All you need is your amazing self and your laptop with Windows 8!
Check it out now at www.microsoft.fi/wowzapp
Getting ready for EuroSkills 2012
Posted: October 2, 2012 Filed under: Students | Tags: EuroSkills Leave a comment »
It’s that time of the of year again.. it’s time to see what EuroSkills has to offer us this year. Today was the first day of the event where students from vocational studies from around Europe come together to compete in their own profession. EuroSkills represents everyone from florits, bricklaying, nursing to web design and much more. I have the honor of being the Finnish WebDesign expert this year and to looking at the competition from a experts point of view, I must say.. it looks pretty interesting!
Imagine Cup Grants program– great support for finalists
Posted: July 10, 2012 Filed under: Contest, Imagine Cup, Students | Tags: Imagine Cup Grants, funding, support, AppCampus Leave a comment »
The Imagine Cup Grants program supports a number of winning teams solutions to go to market and realize their potential to solve a critical global problem. I just sat through a Imagine Cup Grants session during our learning session at the worldwide finals in Sydney. The session was really interesting and I thought I’d share my notes.
Imagine Cup Day 2–The opening ceremony feat. dancing Korean girl
Posted: July 6, 2012 Filed under: Imagine Cup, Students | Tags: windows phone, Nokia, Microsoft, Dancing Korean girl Leave a comment »
Woah, what a day! A lot of fun, hard work and a great opening ceremony! This day has been really busy and Team Matalapaine has been working extremely hard the whole day. Aaltovation and G3A on the other hand have been enjoying a well deserved vacation in the beautify city of Sydney.
Imagine Cup Day 1–Sharks and sleep deprivation
Posted: July 6, 2012 Filed under: Imagine Cup, Students | Tags: windows phone, Imagine Cup, Sydney, Sharks Leave a comment »
We finally arrived to Sydney! After 30 hours of travel we were quick exhausted, but that didn’t stop us from experiencing Sydney…or at least the places right next to our hotel 
We decided to spend the first time with food, sharks and just hanging out. Today the teams are hard at work, so I have some time to tell you what’s up..instead of interrupting the team with my “What are you doing now? What about? How’s it going”-interrogation.
We’re late – who cares
Our travel arraignments changed a bit when our flight from Helsinki got delay and half of the group had to stay overnight at Singapore. We took the most out of that time and decided to share our amazing jokes with each other and grabbing a drink or two.. When we arrived to Sydney we were welcomed by a koala that gave us some Sydney-love and escorted us to our transportation to the hotel.
Sydney – you’re so puurdy
I must say the venue and the hotel are amazing! We took a short walk around the shore and of course grabbed pizzas with local beer. Coming from Finland.. the customer service here is amazing! After getting our tummy’s filled up we decided to check out the local Aquarium and let me says.. WOW!
The whole aquarium was awesome, there were so many different species over there and the best part of it all was of course the shark tank, awesome! After listening to the suiting music of the aquariums and looking at the pretty fishies swim around we were pretty sleepy..but nothing that a few double espressos couldn’t fix!
Finish the evening off with an awesome dinner with the whole gang (btw what’s up with the whole “kitchen closes at 10pm”-thing.. kinda freaked me out) So yeah, first day was pretty much getting to know Sydney and having fun, today the teams are hard at work and tomorrow we will rock Imagine Cup!
Talented students take over Sydney
Posted: July 5, 2012 Filed under: Imagine Cup, Students | Tags: windows phone, Imagine Cup, creativity, Sydney, innovation Leave a comment »
It’s been an amazing year with all kinds of crazy events and activities. I’ve met so many talented students who are passionate about what they do and are ready go the extra mile to share their skills.. let’s say for example through 24h hackathons 
Now I’m in Sydney, Australia with the top 3 teams from Finland, these guys and gals are really something else! I realized that these teams have a few things in common!
Think outside the box – I got a Windows Phone with your name on it
Posted: June 15, 2012 Filed under: Contest, Marketplace, Metro, Store, Students, Windows 8, Windows Phone 7 | Tags: Colorful Drinks, Contest, Lumia 710, Windows 8, windows phone Leave a comment »
It’s summer time, baby! It marks the beginning of chillaxing at the beach, sunburns and colorful drinks with umbrellas! It also marked the release of Windows 8 Release Preview, this means that we’re pretty close to the final version.. it’s time to get ready – and have I got a treat for you!
Students and developers–it’s time to rock Windows 8
Posted: May 15, 2012 Filed under: Store, Students, Windows 8 | Tags: bat-shit-crazy, Metro, Quality Lab, Windows 8 1 Comment »
The Windows 8 Consumer Preview has been around for a while now, this means that you can go and download it on your machine and be … you guessed it be amazed! As a developer, the first thing I was looking for was creating Windows 8 apps and launching them off to the store. You can imagine my disappointment when I realized that I can’t do that – I apologize for everyone around me at that point, the rant-monster went a bit bat-shit-crazy.
Well now I bring good news! It’s time to rock that Windows 8! We’re inviting certain partners to join us at the Windows 8 Quality Labs. “What the freck is that?!” – you think. It’s a lab where you bring your Windows 8 app and we go through it together making sure it’s a “quality app”.
Please note, this applies for Finnish developers, contact your local Developer Platform Evangelism team for details on how it works in your country.
Finnish Imagine Cup 2012–Software Design finalists announced!
Posted: March 30, 2012 Filed under: Contest, Imagine Cup, Students | Tags: Imagine Cup 2 Comments »
It’s been really great to see so many students get excited about Imagine Cup this year! Especially the Windows Phone Challenge has been intersting for interesting for many students around Finland. We’ve had tons of seminars, hackathons, codecamps and courses around the subject during the last couple of months. I want to thank all the MSPs, faculty members and partners who have been involved in providing our students with the best possible training. Who knew 24H events would be so much fun
But now.. something that everyone has been waiting for, the top 3 teams for Software Design who will proceed to the second round and attend the Finnish finals in Taitaja 2012. From there one team will be chosen to represent Finland in the Imagine Cup worldwide finals in Sydney, Australia!
