Damn Koreans

Image via WikipediaThere was another thing that happened on the last day of Imagine Cup. The last morning we were packing and getting ready to go home Matjaž realizes we don't have the projector I've borrowed from Zemanta. Damn! My blood pressure just went from high to higher.

I started to do memory backtracking. I couldn't remember wether I have left the damn thing on the bus or at the hotel. I have checked all the Lost-and-Found places in hotel and no result. So I was sure I left it on the bus. I found one of the Imagine Cup organizers and she helped me out to scout the buses. She called all 8 buses their drivers and asked them to check for the missing projector. No luck.

I double checked all the receptions in the hotel hoping to get my projector back. Still no luck. Then I have faced my situation and said to myself "well there goes 600€".

While I was furiously searching for my projector others from my team went around Paris a little. When they came back they found me sleeping on the sofa. We had an hour before our last buses would leave for the airport. We went together to the big room where all Imagine Cup competitors left their baggage. And what do we see!?

A casing of the projector that is of the same model as ours. And now we had an hour to prove that the projector was ours. It was registered to some Korean guy and there was nothing we could come up with to prove that it is ours. I phoned Andraž Tori that is the owner of the projector and the whole office was searching for the projector serial numbers. They came up with 5 different serial numbers but none of those was correct.

Than our photographer CSI expert :) Anže took out his laptop and camera and searched for the pictures that would have the projector on them. There were a lot but none of them a proof that the projector is ours.

And then the "owners" of the projector step in. We had 20 minutes to catch the last bus. There was the Imagine Cup organizer, hotel baggage guy and the hotel security officer in the room. One of them asks the Korean "is this your baggage?". The guy was playing stupid and trying to get all his stuff out of the room. Security guy stops him and repeats the question. Koren says Yes. Security guy asks him about the projector and the Korean responds "I have found it. My bad"

We were all a bit pissed at the Korean. But I am sure he will get what is coming for him. The Korean Imagine Cup will probably disqualify him.

And I am richer for another word phrase. If there will be something wrong or went missing in the future I will say: "Those damn Koreans again" :)

Eyad Al-Sibai

Eyad is for me one of the most interesting guys I have met in Paris at Imagine Cup competition. He comes from Syria and his name would be translated as "Seven castles".

The reason why he is so interesting was because he comes from a very different culture and believes in very different things than me. But the great thing about him is that he is very intelligent and very open and accepts other people with different believes.

So he was the perfect guy for a quality conversation.

So Eyad is Muslim and they feel strongly against alcohol and club parties. They believe that alcohol takes away the only thing that separates humans from animals - the mind. So one night stands and drunken parties are a big no-no.

He managed to really impress me when he was attending the last and "wildest" Imagine Cup party but still be very calm. The thing is that everything that was happening around him was everthing he trully believes that is wrong. That is a man of great character I thought to myself.

Interesting is that Muslim denie every other religion and believe that others will go to Hell. That logic is also the reason of many wars and horrible deaths. But this guy kept his character. He is worm and firendly towards anybody different that him. Eyan is also very comunicative and he made a bunch of friends. And you know what that must be hard like hell if you come from Saudi Arabia. Because the moment there is Saudi Arabia written on your nametag half of people will think you are some kind of terrorist. And that would be inteligent people from universities. Really!... This society really manages to plant some heavy prejudice in our judgement.

Imagine cup ends

Image via WikipediaThe Imagine Cup is far behind us now. We got the point of this competition a little wrong. The whole idea is that you must develop a product that can be developed, packed and soled as quickly as possible.

So to my disappointment there were a lot of good teams left behind (besides ours of course:) ). If you had a product that needed a mass of people to become really useful for example a social network or kind of Wikipedia you would automatically get minus points. Also it was almost a must to have a business plan developed.

Later I got the feeling that some of the judges were a little old school and didn't have a good idea how internet business works today. If you would present ideas like Zemanta or Twitter they would probaby dislike it.

But in the end still we learned a lot. I have met some very interesting people. And the whole experience was great.

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Slovenia at Imagine cup start

This is my first real blog post.

Let me explain what is going on. My team and I are at world finals Imagine Cup competition in France. We have just concluded the first part of the first phase of the competition. At first we were a little nervous but later the presentation went really well.

There were four judges controling our destiny. We got three pretty excited, but the forth one was holding back a bit. Jernej and Anže had this nice eding sketch which poured some humor into presentation and got eaven the fourth judge smileing. YouTube link.

Tommorow we have another presentation and after that we are going to find out wether we are in the semi finals. In semi finals 12 teams from the original 60 compeete.

So all of you in Slovenia wish us luck tommorow.