Team I'm a PC's Blog

Photosynth of Hello World Booth, imagine cup 2009

teamimapc — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:25:28 +0000

This is the hello world booth at intercontinental citystars, cairo, egypt. You can record a video of yourself inside and it might get published online.

After the video submission, what’s next?

teamimapc — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:49:43 +0000

The video submission took a toll on all of us because we spent countless nights to get it up to our expectations. However we soon gathered together to discuss on how we can improve on our project. Ever since the beginning of our project, much have changed as we made drastic improvements after every stage. This was necessary as we realized though technology played a huge role in this competition, it was also critical to be able to potray the story in a way where it will be attractive both to the judges and also the audience.

We managed to meet up with several venture capitalists to improve on our business idea. We were amazed by how professional they were and how it could shape our presentation to be more convincing.

And let’s not forget, a good presentation is not only with lots of colourful graphics and diagrams. One of the most important background work is the research that must be performed. Besides having to sieve through the numerous research papers on vermicomposting, there was also the tedious job of making full use of these information. With that, the pieces of the presentation slowly came together…..

Moving forward after a visit to Malaysia

teamimapc — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:35:21 +0000

With the deadline for us to upload our team video for all to see, we made full use of our trip to Malaysia in substantiating the many claims that we make. In particular, we were previously concerned about the feasibility of using vermicompost for the use of farming in the first place. Sometimes we can’t trust everything we read from the Internet isn’t it? However, we realized that though Mr Lee, the farmer from Cameron Highlands in Malaysia uses organic farming for all his crops, he does not perform true vermicomposting from what our project is about. Instead, he relies on a certain mix of bacteria to add to an amount of food waste to product nutrients rich enough for mixing with his soil. Instead of doing the production of vermicast in a bin or factory, the worms reside in the soil itself. This is in contrast with our approach of developing a complete system for the production of vermicompost.

Therefore, our desperate search took a surprise turn when we found that a landscaping company in Singapore was in the process of experimenting with the use of vermicomposting worms to produce organic fertilizer. As it is still in the initial stage of the experiment, we were unable to physically view their systems except to interview the managing director of the company. However, he clearly showed us the effect of using vermicompost in his plants. With vermicompost, the plant clearly became stronger, fatter in size and more beautiful. Wow! We were amazed and really excited to witness it!

And yes, with ready information at our fingertips, we immediately embarked on the mission to complete the video. However, with all of us with negligible experience on video editing, the process proved to be tedious and painful. However, as IT professionals of the future just like everyone involved in Imagine Cup, we overcome it together as a team. With proper segregation of work involving subtitling, the search for an appropriate music, video transitions and a strong story line, we finally managed to upload the video just ahead of time. Let’s not forget how worried we were when the upload slowed to a crawl at times!

And here a new milestone is reached…..and overcomed…

In preparation of Egypt!

teamimapc — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:42:34 +0000

As we settle down into our lovely room in Intercontinental Cairo Citystars and before we dive into our experience traveling across the world last night, the time is ripe to share the final few weeks before we are here. All prepared and ready!

The past few weeks had been a long, tiring but fruitful and fun! After getting the notice that we were crowned champions of the software design category in Singapore, we knew there was much we had to do to improve. We knew we could never have a perfect project but that was what we strive for constantly.

We knew we lacked more concrete examples to substantiate our project. The solution was simple in theory but tough to materialize in real. Singapore is a small country with an economy more focused on manufacturing and services than agriculture (Wikipedia states that agriculture contributes 0% to our GDP!). So what could we do? We decided to look at our neighboring country, Malaysia! We were desperate to find answers to the many questions that have plagued us since the start of the project. In the next 3 days, we travelled an approximate total of 600km to find the answers we needed and we got what we wanted. We managed to interview farmers involved in organic farming and it gave us many new perspective on how we could approach our project. Was it worth it? It sure was! Because we needed credibility for our solution and we are confident that with or without imagine cup, our project is a feasible one for implementation.

So what went through the last 2 weeks before where we are right now sharing our experience with all you interested readers? Do check it out later in the day! Cheers!

The birth of Vermis

teamimapc — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:53:05 +0000

Vermis, what is it all about? What does it do, what does it require and how did we come out with this idea? Over here we share with you the secrets of our project. Interested to know more? Read on! =D

Q) What is Vermis?
A) Vermis is a complete solution where we make the use of vermicompost feasible across the world, either a developed country or a developing one. It ensures that vermicomposting worms will be able to survive and maintain a sustainable production of organic fertilizers

Q) Ewww…..did you say worms?
A) Yes~ There is a special breed of worms that is able to ingest organic waste, digest it and pass out organic fertilizers. this organic fertilizer has more potential to improve the harvest of the crop, increase pest resistance of the plant and prevent multiple issues including soil degradation and water pollution

Q) Wow that’s amazing! Then why don’t people use them already?
A) The issue of using vermicomposting worms is that they are extremely sensitive to factors such as temperature, pH and humidity. If any of these factors varies beyond a tight range, the productivity of the worms will drop or they may even die.

Q) How did you all come out with the idea to do this?
A) In the initial stage we had many wacky ideas to meet the objectives of Imagine Cup. It includes playing with electricity, water and even wind! During the brainstorming sessions that we had, Kah Meng brought out the idea of using worms to produce organic fertilizers to replace chemical fertilizers. At first we were skeptical about the feasibility of this project as we have not heard of these before. It was until we did some research on these that convinced us this idea had the most potential to make an impact in the world. After which, there was no more turning back!

There are many more questions that we can answer but it’s going to be so lengthy for you! If you have any burning questions, do post a comment and we will respond as quickly as possible! Cheers!

The birth of team – I’m A PC

teamimapc — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:32:06 +0000

Hi all! We are team “I’m a PC”. You all may not have heard of us but I’m sure you would have recognized the slogan used by recent Microsoft advertisements right? No? It’s a must watch!

Looking back at how we first met, it actually stretched back to the year 2001 when Yizhe and Joel were classmates in their polytechnic. With their close friendship, they both eventually went into NUS together to pursue their undergraudate studies. In the midst of Yizhe’s university education, he joined the Microsoft student partner programme where he met Chun Siong, a polytechnic student who was passionate about Microsoft technologies. The opportunity then arose to for the three to meet up when a popfly competition was organized by Microsoft Singapore. To our surprise, we emerged champions and had the chance to visit the Microsoft campus at Redmond, USA. It was also at that time when the motivation came for the team to seek greater heights at a more prestigious competition, Imagine Cup. With the pursuit to strengthen our team’s creativity, Kah Meng joined us and we decided to brainstorm how we could do well in the competition.

And that is also how the team was formed.