Well...we won!

Team bitshifters (of whom i am a 1/3) won the 2005 Imagine Cup. And yes, I know with a name as lame as "bitshifters" it is suprising we won. (I wanted to name us "byte my bit" but we weren't allowed).

I should probably give a-bit of background info on our tool: OneReach.

It is a mobile blogging tool for use on a Gap Year, which not only allows you to keep a record of your journey (as any blogging tool would), but allows parents and friends back home (or also travelling) to view your journey on an interactive map. It allows gap-year students to search for activities in their current location (the whole tool is location aware using gps). The search results returned are not just static though, they are other travellers blogs, which can be rated and give an unbiased opinion of restaurants, hostels and anything you can possibly do/make/say/see/think! This method of searching creates a snowball effect, whereby blogs which reccommend a really good activity are rated highly and more blogs are made on the same activity/place. So the search gets more accurate as more people rate and write blogs.

There is looooads more stuff it can do and some new awesome features we're going to implement for the world finals, but we wouldn't want to give away too much just yet now would we.

Anyway,

I'm still recovering from the shock of winning. We really didn't expect to. There were some amazing other applications there, particularly mSpace and a bluetooth music sharing app.

When the results were announced, they first called out (in alphabetical order) the 5 runners up. When they didnt announce us at 'B' we suddenly thought, oh...we must be called "The bitshifters". Then when we still weren't called at 'T' we were shocked that we'd come 3rd. We were all ready to go and collect 3rd prize, but still we weren't called. When the 2nd place team were called and it wasn't us, Adrian proceeded to have a spasm of clapping and hyperventilating. I was positive this was all a hallucination induced by sleep deprivation.

But it wasn't and Andy, Adrian and myself proceeded to be pushed and pulled all over the BT tower talking to the BBC, Guardian and lots of people who looked important and wore very nice suits, but whose names we completely failed to register.

So, what's next...lots more hardwork, late nights and call-out pizzas (its quite worrying that our local now recognises our phone number and asks us if we want 'the usual'?). We really do want to make this solution incredible, and represent the UK as best we can, and maybe get our hands on the big pot 'o money in Japan (why else did we go into software...Interllectual satisfaction?)

Jaa, mata ashita aimashou UK ("see you later UK"...i had to google it)

JoE