Team Signbook: Who are you and what does your App?
We are 3rd year Information Technology students from the Turku University of Applied Sciences. Members of Team Signbook are: Tomi Härkönen, Kimmo Koski, Petteri Lehtonen and Johannes Maliranta. We participated in Imagine Cup 2010 Finnish semifinals with the Signbook application. The challenge it solves originates from the sign language interpreter students at Diak: they needed an application that eases and boosts the studying of sign language. Signbook is basically an open bank for sign language terms.

You can follow the development of Signbook in Facebook: www.facebook.com/Signbook

You won the Imagine Cup 2010 semifinals in Finland and your next competition is Imagine Cup finals in Poland. What do you think about Imagine Cup?
It’s just a great opportunity for students to get visibility for their innovations and knowhow. We took part in this competition, because we believe that succeeding in it opens doors and gives career opportunities in the future. We recommend Imagine Cup for all student teams who have great ideas that can be brought to life with technology. Turku University of Applied Sciences supported our work by offering access to hardware and Diak contributed information about sign language and gave us feedback that we used to develop this application further.

Where did you get software for your work?
Our university has the MSDN Academic Alliance (MSDNAA). It’s the easiest and most inexpensive way for academic departments to make the latest Microsoft software available in labs, classrooms, and on student PC’s. There’s also DreamSpark for students: It’s all about giving students Microsoft professional tools at no charge, but because of MSDNAA we didn’t need it.

In case you start your own business from Signbook, would you join BizSpark?
BizSpark is a great option for a software startup and it’s very likely that we will join BizSpark in the future. Web developers can also of course join WebsiteSpark - it’s all about getting Microsoft professional development tools, support and visibility. For students, there’s also an opportunity to become a Microsoft Student Partner. Microsoft Student Partners are students who are passionate about technology, want to develop their skills outside studies and want to become technology rock stars at their own campuses and local communities.

Congratulations Signbook!

More info:
Imagine Cup, http://imaginecup.com/
MSDNAA, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/academic/
DreamSpark, https://www.dreamspark.com/
BizSpark, http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/
WebsiteSpark, http://www.microsoft.com/web/websitespark/
Microsoft Student Partner, https://student-partners.com/