Imagine Cup 2009 IT Challenge

I'm honored once again to be a judge for the Imagine Cup 2009 this year. I and three others will be judging the IT Challenge. This year the finals will be held in Cairo, Egypt.

The object of the IT Challenge competition is to highlight the art and science of developing, deploying, and maintaining IT systems that are efficient, functional, robust and secure. IT professionals have a base set of tools and techniques, but still have to work through customer needs and configurations that require an intimate understanding of how the pieces fit together. They also need to know how far the systems can be pushed before they will break, and how to make the systems highly available, so that they are always available.

The contestants are currently in the round two semi-finals, the written scenario, which ends May 20, 2009.

The worldwide finals run from July 3rd through the 9th in Cairo. Here, competitors will have 24 hours to build a comprehensive IT solution based on a real-world scenario.

First place wins $8,000 USD, second place wins $4,000 USD, and third place wins $3,000 USD.

Good luck, competitors, and I'll see you in Egypt!