One man against the world ...again

It feels rather strange writing this post as it was only a year ago since I was writing roughly the same thing, about my experiences from the Imagine Cup 2010 in Warsaw and summarising some of the amazing things I saw and learnt.

In life and computing I have a pretty simple mantra which is the reason why I do the things that I do:

It may be easy to have an idea, but its what you do with it that counts!

While I was in New York for the Imagine Cup I realised change comes about when you think big, think outside the box and have the tenacity to not give up when others may.

Those that built the incredible skyscrapers that dwarfed New York's skyline didn't think "I don't think we need another floor", instead they built up to what was technically feasible and beyond, I try and do the same with software.

Being the only one man team got me noticed, Adam Daniels has done some great press pieces around my progress last year in Warsaw, and this year in New York; humorously entitled 'Return of the One Man Army'

On the technical front, being able to juggle .Net, .Net CF, .Net MF, WEC7, WPF, WP7 and all the other technologies involved to create a solution had challenges, but where is the fun if there wasn't any. Now I enjoy messing around with gadgets; one of the best ways to think up new things so I was surprised how few teams used .NetMF, Colin Miller picked up on this and did a great blog post around my entry on the MSDN .NetMF portal.

On a personal front, I met a lot of amazing people in New York, and had a chance to compete with some amazingly clever chaps from the UK including Damo.

So to anyone thinking of taking part in the Imagine Cup 2012, which for its 10th anniversary is being held in Australia, it is a once in a lifetime opportunity!