- by Tean Epicure - Jolene Chia Shi Ming, Zheng Jiefang, Tan Qian Ting, Tay Yan Leng from the Diploma in Information Technology

Truth be told, it wasn’t us who actually initiated the process of participating in the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2007. It was our mentor, Mr Oh Chin Lock, who approached us and told us about the competition. A few weeks after the submission of our project proposal for the competition we received an e-mail notifying us that we were among the top 16 teams. We were thrilled (especially when we found out that Microsoft had received 1000 submissions!) We met up with Mr Oh the very next day to discuss how to go about working on the prototype. We also went down to Microsoft for a briefing as well as an interview conducted by the Imagine Cup organisers.

Initially, our progress was slow. We could not make up our minds on what we exactly wanted. We spent so much of our time working on the prototype, that we neglected our presentation. It is little wonder that our first formal presentation was quite a nerve-wrecking experience and we were convinced that we would not make it through to the finals. The results were announced the following day at Microsoft. Of the 16 teams, 11 were eliminated one by one and 5 were selected for an interview to determine the top 3 finalists.

Much to our surprise, we made it all the way from the top 5 into the top 3! Our efforts intensified and to prepare ourselves we were making presentations to different people, in different places, everyday. On the day of the Final Presentation we had to give 2 presentations, back-to-back, to judges like the Managing Director of Microsoft, venture capitalists and even the CEO of MediaCorp Publishing.

When the results were announced on 15 June 2007, we were thrilled to find that we had won the People’s Choice Award* as well as the 2nd prize for the Software Design Invitational.

As we look back though, we know that this has been our greatest personal achievement. We managed to adjust to impromptu changes, prioritise what is most important to us, and learn things that we could never have learnt just within the confines of a classroom.

We are so grateful for the support of our lecturers and our friends, who came down to attend the awards ceremony on 15 June. We appreciate the people who gave us an opportunity to shine, those who had helped us along the way, not because they wanted to gain anything from us, but they really wanted to help us because they sincerely care. These include our friends, lecturers and the Imagine Cup organisers.

Yes, there were times initially we really wanted to give up and didn’t put in a 100%, but if today you were to ask us if we would do it again, we would say without reservation: “Yes, definitely, only better !”

[* The People’s Choice Award is given to the team that garners the most sms votes form the Public. Team Epicure secured 25,000 votes !]