Standing on the podium are students from xidian university, technical experts from Microsoft, other practitioners in the same industry, and his instructor. This is not a classroom exercise, nor is it a student's graduation defense, but a Microsoft Imagination Cup competition.
As a student group competition that has been held continuously for 15 years, Microsoft Creative Cup attracts many teams to participate every year. In May this year, 16 and 17, 27 teams from 29 schools in China finally reached the finals, and * * * gathered in Shanghai. It is surprising that these students from all over the world have added 27 clever ideas to their handmade products. Perhaps, we can also see some shadows of the future from their works.
Good ideas dug up from students
There are 27 selected projects this year, many of which are eye-catching ideas. The team named Doraemon used the combination of Azure machine learning, computer vision and motion capture technology to complete the magic mirror project, turning a seemingly ordinary mirror into a "smart drawing board" for children to practice words. In addition to "writing and drawing" in the air by hand, it can also improve the vocabulary reserve of young children.
In order to solve the problem that English beginners encounter word jam when reading English articles, a team named HugeHard developed a mobile phone program "Night Lights Words" by combining computer vision, text translation and Azure machine learning technology. By taking photos directly while reading, unfamiliar words can be found, so as to clear the obstacles before reading and better plan the reading process, which can be said to solve the pain points of many English learning applications.
This invention, which is used to help the disadvantaged groups, will undoubtedly make people feel warm. WeeTAP team from Wenzhou Ken University tried to combine speech recognition technology with repetitive memory learning technology to establish a customizable training mechanism to treat dementia and mental retardation patients in continuous exercise training. However, the Cambrain team of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications has developed a wearable device. When visually impaired people wear it, they can "perceive" the surrounding environment through the combination of depth vision sensor, motion capture and voice interaction. It can be said that it is full of bold imagination and considerable practicality.
There are also modular unmanned ships and environmental monitoring systems, which can independently detect and test water quality in various environments. The internal module can realize automatic GPS navigation, water quality sampling, detection and instant synchronization to the cloud, and the data analysis library in the background can further analyze the collected data and formulate water pollution early warning and response plans. This unmanned ship designed by the team named ETHINK from the perspective of environmental protection may really come in handy in the near future.
Of course, these are just the tip of the iceberg. At the scene, we also saw many students' works, from virtual reality to machine learning, from image recognition to motion perception. They use their creativity to make ideas that are not so far away.
Although standing on the stage, they are not excellent in some aspects (such as the ability of slides and speeches on the stage), in the on-site evaluation, the judges pay more attention to the comprehensive comparison of innovation, technology, concept and feasibility factors. In the end, the team from xidian university won the first prize of the contest with the wearable intelligent surgical assistant system that has been put into practical use.
After understanding, the team's surgical assistant system has applied for a patent, and has established a cooperative relationship with Guangzhou People's Hospital, which has been put into medical use. The team also has their own ideas on how to commercialize, and through the analysis of competing products, they have a clear understanding of their works. On the stage of Microsoft Creative Cup competition, such passionate and practical teams abound.
How is a student competition held for 15 years tempered?
The Creative Cup Competition has been held for 15 years, which is not only an arena for student geeks, but also a carnival. As the organizer, Microsoft can best feel the changes of the competition and students over the years.
During the intermission of the competition, we interviewed Shen, Chairman of Microsoft Asia Pacific Technology Co., Ltd. and General Manager of Microsoft China Cloud Computing and Enterprise Division. In the past 65,438+05 years, he has participated in this competition for three years, and has been paying attention to various events of the Imagination Cup competition. For the changes over the years, he saw it this way:
Microsoft's "Imagination Cup" began in 2003 and has a history of nearly 15 years. It was a personal computer in 2003. At that time, the internet was just a display of content, and a website was built. Later, the concept of so-called web services appeared, which is some service concepts in the cloud. But the cloud at that time was not what everyone imagined.
So in a few years, many people began to do some terminal services, especially in Shenzhen, which has stood at the core of global hardware development. So students made some innovations, such as how to choose courses, how to arrange grades, how to do distance teaching, and many different applications began to come out. Two or three years ago, people began to pay attention to the field of machine learning. In the past, we used to use computers, but through deep learning, computers can help us use machines. There are many different trends, so students began to make some changes in this respect.
There are several key points in this year's competition. The first is that the participating teams basically use the function of the cloud. Five years ago, everyone was still in the fog, and I didn't know when it would rain. Today, five years later, cloud is an irreversible trend. Among the 27 teams that entered the finals today, it was gratifying to see that many students began to discuss artificial intelligence, which is a very cutting-edge part.
The second highlight is that many innovations have been made to help the disadvantaged groups. Everyone knows that there are 6 billion people on the surface of the earth, and not everyone can move freely and get information like you and me, so we have seen the concept of cloud exchange. The part of the cloud is not only for people at the top of the pyramid, but should be widely used by everyone, and artificial intelligence is the same. Thankfully, not only last year's winning team, but also some stuttering AIDS have been studied this year.
From all aspects, starting from 15, Microsoft was lucky to build a platform and provide a good tool to grow with the very diligent students in China. Therefore, I am glad to see that some of the things they published are not immediately commercialized, but they put forward some innovative ideas in the process of contacting cutting-edge technology, reflecting the needs of emerging technologies and human beings on the earth's surface.
Technological change is indeed accelerating, but for Microsoft, deciding the outcome in the Imagine Cup competition is not the ultimate goal. When good ideas have great value, Microsoft's approach is to further improve these projects through accelerators, connect these student makers and investors, and make their ideas productized. In the interview, Shen also mentioned that Microsoft prefers to connect resources for students rather than acquire them. After the establishment of Microsoft Accelerator (China, Beijing and Shanghai) 20 12, Microsoft has promoted 140 different projects, many of which have become companies in the industry and are achieving their initial goals.