Another year passed, one more Imagine Cup final. It was the Software Design section. Sytech team, from Iasi, was selected to represent Romania in the world competition finals, in Egypt. As students, the only competition we could attend was ACM. It was more theoretical. Nowadays, I believe students are overwhelmed by the countless possibilities to train, experience, participate in projects, competitions, internships and so on. You would say this is a good thing, that it’s normal. However, from behind the jury desk we see a different side of the story. We see it is still difficult for us to prepare a project that is ready for prime time. Maybe us, as Romanians, are not trained yet well enough in giving birth to great ideas, freeing our mind to think the impossible, but to make it possible. I hope next year I will be amazed. This year, we (the jury members) could only select which team was better than the others, but not which team was the winner.
Still, I believe that participating makes us better, so I hope all people present, including myself, will learn from the experience and will do better next time.
[Update]
For technical details about the competition, Valy’s blog has a thorough description of the teams, projects and criteria here.
Dan Iancu has put to use his great journalistic experience to pinpoint exactly the illness that we saw. I subscribe to his call to wake up. For a serious reading, go here.
