I had the great opportunity last week to go down to Brigham Young University (BYU) to be a judge for the Imagine Cup 2004.

There were three teams that had to create some software that had to meet the following requirements:

1. The app had to be written using .NET technologies (each team chose C# as the language of choice)
2. The app had to run on a PocketPC (or rather, had to rely on the Compact Framework)
3. The app had to utilize Web Services

Each application was judged on a variety of factors:

• Innovation
• “Application Smarts“
• Usefulness
• and to a lesser degree, Style (though I deem that one of some import)

Each of the three teams came up with some pretty cool stuff.  The winning application was a 'reminder' app that would remind you of tasks or assignments based on location.  It used Web Services that the team wrote as well as the Microsoft Map Point Web Services.  While GPS-functionality had not yet been written into the program, it was the next logical step.  The goal was that, based off of your task list and current GPS information, your PocketPC would remind you of to-do items as you approached the 'hot spots'.

Pretty cool - especially if integration into Outlook were ever completed.

Good job guys and keep up the great work!