Big App on Campus: Two Weeks Left!

Back in November, we announced a developer promotion for US students called “Big App on Campus.” There are exactly 18 days left to enter. Though we think it’s a no brainer, some of you have asked “Why should I enter?” Let’s recap:

1. For the experience of a lifetime -> 10 finalists, along with one of their friends, will win a trip to SxSW in March. If selected as a finalist, you and your friend will get to come hang out with The Gracious Few (featuring members of the bands LIVE and Candlebox) and attend a rocking concert.

2. $30k in prize money -> the top paid app and the top free app will each win $15,000!

3. Serious bragging rights -> finalist apps will be featured on our Facebook page and the developers behind these creations will have some crazy stories to tell about their time in Austin at SxSW.

<aside reason=”toAppeaseTheLawyers”>No Purchase Necessary. Open only to US university students 18+ who are legal residents of the U.S. and D.C. Submissions due 02/14/2012 and game ends 03/13/2012. For Official Rules, click here</aside>

All Windows Phone applications published since August 1, 2011 are eligible for entry. However all apps must be published to the Marketplace by February 14^th. Make your Valentine proud and enter your app today – I’m sure she/he won’t mind helping you spend the $15k in winnings up for grabs. Check out our Facebook page for all details and information on how to get started on building your first, or next, Windows Phone app.

#WPAppItUp Wrap-Up

Starting back in October, we challenged students to create Sketchflow prototypes of their app ideas for Windows Phone. I’m happy to announce the full list of winners:

@cbarretopy

@simzzdev

@m_naveed4u

@sp990

@gowtham1337

@3xdev

@utebolatas

@sakarshkumar

@sriharsha_63

@luciomsp

Congratulations to all the winners!

Ben

@benlower | phoneninja@microsoft.com | +1 (206) 659-NINJA (6465)

Some people write apps for fun. Others for cash.

Then there’s Wilson To, a 25-year-old University of California grad student who’s developing an app to turn a Windows Phone into a weapon against disease. His target: malaria, which kills thousands of young children in sub-Saharan Africa each year.

Today Microsoft awarded To and three other student groups working on life-altering tech projects $75,000 to help them commercialize their work or take it to the next stage of development.

The awards, announced this morning at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, are part of the inaugural Imagine Cup Grants program—a new three-year, $3 million offshoot of the company’s popular Imagine Cup student technology competition, now in its 10th year.

All of the winning projects announced today are impressive—just take a look at the Imagine Cup blog and you’ll see what I mean. One Croatian team used Kinect to help kids with cerebral palsy.  Combining Windows and a Wii-mote, a team from Jordan made it possible for people who are paralyzed to use a computer and phone.

But, as you might expect, the two winning projects involving Windows Phones particularly caught my eye.

The first comes from Falcon Dev, a student team based in Ecuador that’s working on making a Windows Phone translate speech into sign language for kids who are hearing impaired, something they’ve already achieved on a Windows PC. The project is called SkillBox—but you have to see the video to appreciate how cool it really is.

And finally there’s the Lifelens project led by Wilson To.  Using a custom-made app and a tiny lens scrounged from an old CD player, he and his team have made it possible for a Windows Phone to diagnose malaria from a drop of blood. (The add-on lens can magnify blood cells 350 times.) Watch the video below or check out this recent Forbes write-up for specifics. There are already cheap and accurate blood tests for malaria available. But the team thinks a tech-based test still has advantages: Lifelens is being designed to map confirmed cases and transmit real-time results to public health workers, potentially helping them track malaria cases more effectively.

Next steps for To and company: a snap-on case containing the micro-lens. They’re also planning to conduct more lab tests this summer, followed by field testing sometime later. As Business Week reported last year, To eventually hopes to make his app capable of recognizing other blood-borne scourges, such as sickle cell anemia.

“Malaria is just the beginning,” he told the magazine.

If you plan your days using Google Calendar, you’ll be happy to know that the company’s Sync team has now made it possible to show appointments from multiple calendars on your Windows Phone 7.5 (thanks, fellas!).

To add them, just go to m.google.com/sync on your phone. Once you’ve logged in, select your device and the calendars you want to sync (you can choose up to 25—if you’re really that organized). Tap Save and you’re done! Note that your new calendars won’t show up until your phone’s next sync with Google’s servers—every 30 minutes by default. To make them show up sooner, you’ll need to do a manual sync.  We’ve put together some detailed instructions here.

But wait, as they say, there’s more. Multiple calendar support wasn’t the only goodie Google announced today. The company has also now made it possible to search for Gmail messages that haven’t been downloaded to your phone yet—an upgrade I know many of you will welcome.