I have just got out of the Opening Ceremony of the UK Imagine Cup Finals and from what I can tell today is going to be great. The ceremony kicked off with a video showing off the US and New York City to advertise the competition. Next Ben Nunney took to the podium and welcomed us all to the event. Welcoming the contestants who the whole day is for and the MSPs who just came along for the free food. Next, unsurprisingly, there was mention of cake, for those of you who know Ben this should be expected.

Following this was a “message from the legal team” about fire exits and some humorous comments about the use f the facilities within the building.

Next Emanuele Ognissanti, from Microsoft Corp. and head of the Imagine Cup program, was welcomed and gave us a welcoming speech and told us how excited he is about the Imagine Cup. Ognissanti shared with us some impressive stats about Imagine Cup: this is the competition’s 9th year, it now takes place in over 70 countries and has over 300,000 registrants worldwide. He then shared with us some specifics about the Imagine Cup finals that will be taking place in NYC, it sounds great. Contestants will stay in a hotel right in Times Square, the event will be held in one of New York’s biggest venues and the attendees will get to go on a few trips.

Ben then came back to talk to us about the history of technology and how much it has changed over the past few years and what that means for everyone. He pointed out just how many opportunities there are for people now and its up to students to make the most of them. He spoke about the cloud, the internet and mobile devices and we were shown a very funny video about IE9 and the feedback Microsoft got about its browser prior to its latest version; I am going to try and get a copy of the video.

The Opening Ceremony was then wrapped up. I’ll let you know throughout the day what other things are happening at the UK Finals.

I shall be tweeting pictures all day long so keep a look out for them. Good luck to all the teams today!