LINK Development, in cooperation with Microsoft, announced today the launch of its community portal LINK 2 Imagine Cup (www.link2imaginecup.com) for the upcoming Imagine Cup World Wide finals held next July in Cairo for the first time. The portal offers updated news and information on activities related to the global competition during which Egypt will be hosting delegations of students, observers and referees representing universities and corporations from more than 120 countries.

LINK Development is the only local software partner sponsoring the Imagine Cup finals organized by Microsoft. LINK Development also sponsors four Egyptian teams, including OTS project, which presented a technology based solution for traffic problems, and MEDBOX project, both winners of the local Imagine Cup finals and Egypt representatives in the global finals.

“Hosting the global Imagine Cup finals is a unique event for the Egyptian IT industry, and a golden opportunity to demonstrate to the world the level of development our local industry achieved,” said Hanan Abdel Meguid, LINK Development CEO. “LINK Development is proud to be sponsoring such an event and actively participate through the newly launched community portal, designed to help all participants in sharing their unforgettable competition moments and memories with friends, family, the media and all relevant parties across the globe through blogs, news, pictures, and videos in addition to Twitter.

Through LINK Development’s community “The Bridge”, which works on linking the academic and business societies together, the company hosted a number of training sessions, supported various participating teams and projects by giving planning, technical and marketing consultations and support throughout the preparation and local finals’ phases.

LINK 2 Imagine Cup community portal offers many services such as calendar of events, intellectual and entertainment links that offer detailed information on Egypt for overseas visitors, in addition to blogs, file and video sharing, and many other services.

“Imagine Cup competition became a global event in its seventh year, with more than 200 thousand students representing 100 countries in 2008,” said Ahmed Adel, Developers Director of Microsoft Egypt. “With the theme 'Imagine a world where technology helps solving the toughest problems facing us today', this year's contest is paid special attention since Egypt will host the global finals. This urged Microsoft as well as other governmental and nongovernmental organizations to do their best in order to ensure the success of such a huge event. The new portal launched by LINK Development, Microsoft’s oldest Gold Certified Partner in Egypt, is one of those many efforts exerted in preparation for the big event,” added Adel.

Cairo won the bid to host the global Imagine Cup finals after fierce competition with proposals from many other countries. In order to ensure the best results, especially with the increasing number of participating teams, Microsoft offered trainings and online material for the Egyptian students executed by LINK Development. This year shows a record of participation with 9000 Egyptian students’ application.

LINK 2 Imagine Cup community portal offers many services such as calendar of events, intellectual and entertainment links that offer detailed information on Egypt for overseas visitors, in addition to blogs, file and video sharing, and many other services.

The competition has top attention of governmental and nongovernmental organizations in Egypt. Promotion for the event started in October 2008 with strong support from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Suzanne Mubarak's international peace movement.

The Imagine Cup competition was first launched in 2003 as the world's premier young people and university students technology competition, beginning with local contests to choose the winning team that will represent its country and attend the global finals that are held in a different location every year. The finals were previously held in different countries including Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, South Korea, France last year and Cairo to host this year's finals.

This year's competition covers nine different specialties: Software Design, Embedded Development, Game Development, Robotics and Algorithm, IT Challenge , MashUp, Photography, Short Film and Design. The first three winning teams will get financial prizes. In spite of the importance of the prizes for the young people, the majority of the participants' main objectives are innovation, intensive worldwide competitiveness and direct networking with teams and IT companies from around the world.

For more information visit: http://www.link2imaginecup.com