Flipping through this week’s Economist, I was hoping to stumble upon a fresh example of Marketing for Good. Remarkably, the only one I found was from “big bad” Microsoft about their global technology competition called the Imagine Cup. Though the competition is not new, it was new to me and I was intrigued enough to learn more about it. Turns out the Imagine Cup is now in its 5th year, involving over 100,000 students from over 100 countries. The introduction on the website imaginecup.com sets the tone:

Let’s face it — the world needs help. The kind of help that happens when you take the top young minds from around the globe and turn them loose on solving the world’s toughest problems. That’s what the Imagine Cup is all about. This is your chance to innovate and create, show the world what you’ve got, and win some serious prizes. Simply put, it’s your chance to use the power of technology to change the world—and have some fun while you’re at it.

Microsoft has a lot to gain from the Imagine Cup.  Young coders are a particularly independent lot and are steeped in anti-Microsoft lore at an early age.  Microsoft is seen as the enemy of “creativity, ideas and dreams” the very words it uses to promote the Imagine Cup.  A competition like this is irresistable to young coders helping to neutralize some of the negative perceptions.  Here’s what one young coder noted about his participation:

I never thought I would have to add something called “Microsoft” in my tag list, but it’s happening. After going through a lot, we our two proposals, one for Software Design (GeoLink) and other for web development (AcSO), went to second round. OMG.. Imagine a doing two imagine cup projects.. damn.. it’ll be hell of a lot of work… let’s see. I’ll keep this up to date.

The competition includes regional finals withing countries with the winners getting to go to the finals (India in 06, Korea in 07). Winning even the regionals is quite a prestigious honor worth boasting about as one team from UK does:

Here’s a question, what do they put in the water in Hull that makes the students there keep winning the UK heat of Microsoft’s annual Imagine Cup? Last year it was Team Three Pair from Hull University that took the honours, and this year – the fifth outing for the global competition – it was a team called The Seedlings that snatched the victory from 10 others competing down at Microsoft’s Reading fastness. And yes, The Seedlings come from Hull University as well.

In the scheme of things, this is a tiny program relative to Microsoft’s massive global footprint. Yet for the 65,000 kids who participated in 2006, it was a chance to test their ingenuity on a world stage. Microsoft is smart to engage these kids and to celebrate brains over brawn. Being a geek has always been cool at Microsoft. Helping young geeks around the world feel the love will pay huge dividends for Microsoft in the years to come, not just by making their brand more appealing but also by identifying a potential talent pool long before they graduate. Smart stuff. Good stuff.

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