Saleh Blog

I watched this video on Channel8 and I figured out to write what I have learned from Imagine Cup 2008 Gulf region contest which was held in Jebel Ali resort, Dubai. I might even wind up being glad that I have failed! Failure is the first step to success.

For those who does know what is Imagine Cup, it is an annual competition from Microsoft aimed to solve world’s toughest challenges by using technology. Software Design is one of the categories in this competition. We have to use .NET technologies for this year’s theme, which is the environment.

Lessons learned from Imagine Cup 2008:

1- Don’t wait until the last 2 nights!

That’s my first mistake. We haven’t done the video nor practiced well for the presentation. Never ever delay anything until the last two days before the presentation. You will not have time to do anything because you’ll be totally booked for all the trips and events happening the day before the contest.

2- Eat well! But not much…

I was shocked when I woke up just 1:30 hour before the presentation. I had to jump off the bed and rush to get ready. There was no time at all to eat breakfast. But I could at least eat a 1 minute snack!

3- Bring business card

We met lots of people there from different countries and different universities. We also met a lot of people from the press and Microsoft. I think if we brought a business card it would make life easier to keep in touch with some of those individuals.

4- Be prepared

Always be prepared and have a backup plan! I had everything prepared before the presentation and I even hibernated my laptop rather than totally shutting it down just to make sure it will directly open  with my slides ready on the screen. But after going on the stage my laptop’s touch pad suddenly – and for the first time – stop responding. I was like "Hell no! It never happened to me before… why now?!". Damn it was a funny situation in front the camera and a hall full of audience.

5- More practice

The more practice you do the less mistakes you’ll make. I was shitty nervous in the stage. I was even shaking and I felt totally blocked out. It was like I can’t see anything, my vision was blocked… saying wrong words and grammar because I was extremely nervous. However, after the presentation my friend told me that I did very well and it was like one of the best presentations in the contest and he told me that I didn’t look nervous at all. To be honest, we did our practice just the night before the presentation from 12:30am to like 2:30am. I’m sure if we had practiced days before the contest, we would do much better in the contest’s presentation.

6- Video!

Every team has used videos in their presentation. We were the only team started the presentation without any video clips. You asking why? It’s because we didn’t have the time to do it and we ended up deciding to do it the day before the contest which again was a big mistake. Video is an essential part of the presentation to deliver your idea in another way and to convince judges. After all, we are marketing our idea and there is no limitation on what you should do when marketing your product.

7- Demo!

Believe it or not, we didn’t have a running program for the contest. Even though it is not required to have a running program in the regional contest, but it would be a big plus for our team. A program demonstration will show judges how far you’ve reached in developing the program and it is really a proof that your idea is implement and your software is working.

8- Sleep well…

Oh this is the thing which I’m not really good at. I rarely sleep well and I occasionally don’t care if I slept well or not. Guess what! I slept only 4 hours before the presentation… and maybe it is one of the factors that affected my mood in the presentation.

9- It’s not how good your project as much as how to deliver it to judges

We had a great and easy to implement idea. But the problem – in my opinion – was we weren’t able to convince the judges. I think they didn’t totally understand the concept behind our project and how easy it is to implement. After all, they did told us that their main focus was on selecting the idea which is good and easy to implement. Convincing is the keyword in this regional contest.

10- Marketing skills is much more important than a working application

I also learned that the presentation and communication is much important than showing them a working demo of the project. The regional Imagine Cup contest wasn’t aimed to show a demonstration of your project, it is aimed to communicate with judges and to convince them that you have the best idea and the easiest to implement. If you convinced them and won the regional, then you’ll move a step ahead and start implementing your project for the finals.

I think we, Super Coders team, did pretty well in the competition even though it was the first time for a team from Kuwait University and Kuwait to participate in this contest. Winning an XBox 360 Arcade at least it won’t let me feel I left Dubai empty handed.

My goal for Imagine Cup 2009 is to win the regional and win the final. Microsoft told us that next year (2009) will have a local competition rather than regional Gulf competition. The winner in Kuwait for Imagine Cup 2009 will go directly to the final contest.

I’d like to thank Dr. Thalaya Al-Fozan – our team coach, Kuwait University – Dr. Mohammad Ilyas – Gulf University for Science and Technology – for his effort and precious time he gave us on our project. Thanks to Microsoft and Lana Khalaf for their effort on making this great event. I really had fun there in Dubai.

Sitepoint and 99designs are offering a free complete book, The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques. This book is aimed for web developers looking forward to add Photoshop in their technique basket. It is available for a limited time. Hurry and grab it now! 
As for me, I have a week off between summer and fall semester. I’m going to get my hands dirty with books and programming! This book should be a good start. Long live fall break…

I love this program!

Imagine Cup Gulf – Software Design category – regional final is set to start next week on 10th of May in Dubai. Six teams of many teams in the Arabia Gulf region have been nominated for the regional contest.

Here is the contest agenda as received by email from Microsoft:

Under extreme stress and lack of sleep I tried to squeeze my schedule to write this post. I haven’t written anything for some time now on this blog because I’m so busy nowadays. Let’s start off with, what the hell I’m doing?

1- Midterms and school work.

2- Getting ready for Imagine Cup.

3- Working on a research project.

4- Setting up Informatics Day event.

5- Following up CpE Socieities and the magazine.

6- .Net Programming Club.

7- Cisco Course is killing me.

1. School Works

Okay I’m enrolled in 15 credits classes and it is killing me. I had just done a midterm and there are 3 on the way which are in Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday. Most of those classes are difficult subjects and takes time to study not to mention all the projects we are assigned to do. Next week alone I have to submit 2 projects… damn.

2. Imagine Cup

About a week left for the trip of the regional contest in Dubai. We still have lots of stuff to do and unfortunately those things would take DAYS to get them done and we have to do it in few hours. Our presentation will be in 11th of May and we have to get everything sorted out at least 2 days before. It’s now 1st of May… Do you think we can still do that? We still have to finish our speech, presentation slides, the freaking video that takes forever to edit, and we still have a lot to do in the programming part. Holy smokes!

3. Research Project

I have been working on it for a year, the final day to send the paper is today, however, my mentor and instructor Dr. Maitham was able to extend the due date. We are like 99% done, we just need to finalize some stuff. I’ll be happy to see that paper published.

4. Informatics Day

Yep, the most anticipated day for Computer Engineering department in the college. I’m organizing it alone, and I think it is fair to say that I’m receiving only little help from some board members of the society, heck some are even complaining about me and I’m really disappointed. It will be the biggest event ever organized by the society and I was able to make it unofficially an open day for the department. I’m glad now we have an open sponsorship from Kuwait Society of Engineers. I invited Microsoft to do 3 workshops for that event; however, I’m really disappointed with their sponsorship. I was expecting much more from them.

5. CpE Societies

We did great events this year and people are happy with our accomplishment in such small period. We still have few events planning to do and I have to make sure that the next 3 tutorial will happen in a 3 week window.

We are also printing a new magazine and it is currently in the print shop. I had to submit few new articles and follow up the design process of the magazine in the print shop. Of course I can’t follow it up much because I’m so busy but other board members are doing that too which really, really, truly reliefs me a lot.

6. dot Net Club

I don’t know if you ever heard of it because it is a new club in the university. I’ve been appointed in Technology position and soon Vice President. We haven’t done anything yet so far…

7. Cisco CCNA-2

This class has huge material that should be covered in less than a 20 days. Online exams should also be taken which is a big time waster.

Pardon me for any grammar or spelling mistakes. I’m writing this post in haste.

Ajaxian has posted a book for Adobe AIR developers called “Adobe AIR for JavaScript Developers”. The book is under Creative Commons license so it is free. The book has been out for sometime but this one is updated for AIR 1.0. You can get it here.

I never ever witnessed such a storm in Kuwait! Watch until the end of the video and you’ll be shocked. It happened last Friday! Watch the video:

Me and my teammate are suppose go out that night and take some video shots of pollution in our environment for the Imagine Cup competition. Well, it came right on us like hell. Shit, I never imagine something like this can hit Kuwait! So I picked up the phone and called my teammate to take a video shot.

Mother nature is pissed! What have we done? What have we done! Climate change is affecting the whole world, even here in Kuwait.

This storm lasted for like 10min but lots of damage left behind. Next year, maybe a freaking tsunami hurricane or maybe volcano! Who knows! Shit happens when it is unexpected.

More videos of the storm can be found here.