After last year's Russia, Imagine Cup 2006 brought Italy to win the yearly technology competition.
So who are Team Italy? One of them is Giorgio Sardo (the team leader). He is a Student Ambassador, already achieved MCTS, and a former member of theSpoke Student Advisory Board (SAB). I've worked with him during SAB to shape the current format of theSpoke. I remember him as a friend, fired up my Windows Live Messenger, searched for his name, and contacted him to congratulate on his winning.
Even more, this nice guy let me a short interview about his winning project, Hello World (HW), and about Imagine Cup experience in general. I've summarized some key Q&As below:
Adrian Godong (AG): What is your project?
Giorgio Sardo (GS): It's about a field of healthcare which technology haven't played a big role in the past, psychiatry. HW give therapists a brand new tool to help treat psychiatric disorders like anxiety and stress. HW collects “contextual data“ and “biometric parameters“ from the patient, and then analyzes it to give more perspective for the therapists. So if you have had a panic attack, therapists can analyze what happened before the attack so that they would be able to find out what happened (and give treatments accurately).
AG: What is your project “technical excellence”?
GS: The collection of data is transparent to the patient. You can wear a watch and Smartphone, and do your daily routines. The gadgets collects your data and send it to the therapists' server for analysis (without the need of patient interaction). The server then mines the data, and returned the result to the therapist for further analysis. Also, HW is built on top of .NET Framework 3.0, so it's really cool.
AG: What will you do with the US$25,000?
GS: Believe me, everyone keeps asking on that money. When I took part in Imagine Cup, it was never about the money. So, I'm not sure what to do with them. But I'm investing a part of it to the project.
AG: Where will the project go from now?
GS: We wanted to start testing the application with real users. Listening to their feedback and improving it. After that, we'll start thinking about the business plan.
AG: Last question, why “Hello World”? Why not “Contextual Patient Information Gathering System” or something geeky like that?
GS: The aim of the project is to improve people’s everyday lives. Our objective is to give them a calming message such as “Hello World” as their wake-up call. Hello World also represents the first application that a developer writes when learning a new programming language. In a short time, the developer will be able to realize much more complex and creative applications. In the same way, our project is meant to be a starting point for the creation of a new generation of medical tools.
AG: That's very nice! Any message you'd like to share with the world and encourage them to imagine something?
GS: Close your eyes and relax. Take a deep breath and just...imagine!
AG: OK, congratulations on your winning and thank you very much for your time!
GS: Thank you.
So it's not always about the money. It's about how you imagine a world where technology helps our daily routine. See you again in the next “maybe-not-so-exclusive” interviews with the technology stars!
Afternoon Update: Giorgio have put up a web site about Hello World.