President of the United States, Barack Obama hosted the first White House Science Fair today. Wilson To and Christian Hood, participants in the Imagine Cup 2010 Worldwide Finals, attended the event and were recognized for their creative ideas.
Over 60 students from across the nation were invited to demo their projects in an exclusive showcase at the White House. President Obama kicked off the celebration by discussing the importance of science and technology education. “If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you’re a young person and you produce the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too,” said President Barack Obama during the live broadcast of the science fair.
Wilson To, who attends the University of California, Davis, was a member of team Mobilife. They were selected as the US finalists for the Software Design competition for their project, a mobile diagnostic tool of vascular diseases. Mobilife connects Windows Phone technology with computer-assisted in-field analysis of patients to detect developing microangiopathy in children. They represented their country at the Worldwide Finals, held in Warsaw, Poland last summer.
Mobile technology is an increasingly popular platform for Imagine Cup projects. Christian Hood from the Advanced Technology Academy in Las Vegas was a member of team BeastWare and created a mobile gaming app for last year’s competition and won the Windows Phone 7 Rockstar Award in Poland. While at the Worldwide Finals, teammate Eric Lo and Christian were also presented with early versions of Windows Phone 7, making team BeastWare some of the first app developers to demo the new devices.
Both teams are great examples of the many talented students that participate in the Imagine Cup. The experiences made through the competition, from learning new skills and applying them to real problems to presenting ideas to a panel, are invaluable.
The Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals will be held in New York City! Check out the registration page to find more information on how to participate.