Here's an article from computer world magazine, where we featured :)

http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/devt/EBD595EF6826FCD0CC25743D001BCC1F

Well the other night we had a meeting at Clarus.  This is who our Industry Mentor Mike works for - they're a software contracting company in Christchurch. 
They've been helping us throughout the competition, and are offering even more help with the next stage of our competition. 

The meeting involved eating lots of pizza and chips, with some wine to wash it down :D

Clarus has organised for us to do our presentation on 10 June at the Canterbury Software Cluster, and representatives from Microsoft will be there as well, telling everyone about the Imagine Cup event.  This will be a good practice for France, as we'll have to improve our presentation, and internationalise (or should I say internationalize) our presentation.

We've made it to the front page of the Software Cluster's website: http://www.canterburysoftware.org.nz/Home and we've had lots of people commenting on seeing us in the local newspaper :)  I'll leave the fame stories for another blog - I'll take some screen shots of some of the sites where we're mentioned.... more to come soon....

So recently, we've been thinking about whether we could patent the 'Taxibus' idea.  We've talked to lots of different people, including Intellectual Property professionals, and we've been learning lots.

There seems to be a bit of a difference when it comes to patenting software, compared to other areas.  Patenting laws are also different around the world, and so if you go somewhere like the web, and ask for some advice, you'll get many different answers (some conflicting)!

It seems that we wont be able to patent our idea, as it seems to have been thought about decades ago!  This doesn't meant that the idea has been implemented yet, and so we really have first movers advantage.  You can patent algorithms in software, as part of a system, however we've decided against this - we believe it would be too easy to work around an algorithm, and we've been told that "A patent is only as good as your ability to defend it (in court)". This doesn't mean all hope is lost - a Patent is by no way a miracle cure!  Many companies protect their ideas by way of 'trade secrets'.  This basically means that anyone that looks at the 'secret' - in our case our code, must sign a non disclosure agreement, promising not to tell anyone or disclose any details of the system.

After months of development on our project, we've managed to take out the New Zealand finals!

Paris here we come!!  (apparently Singapore Airlines have some fancy flights as well :))

It was good times up in Auckland - we stayed at the luxurious 'The Westin' and enjoyed the indoor pool and jacuzzi.  Friday night's dinner was awesome - it was at a small restaurant at the side of the Westin, and it was like a little night club -snoop doggy dog style. There were florescent green, blue, yellow lights on the ceiling, and the food was immaculate.

The 5am wake up call made a bit of an impact, and we retired to our soft fluffy beds at 10pm.

Everything came together on Friday morning.  We were having some wireless internet issues, and a fixed connection soon eliminated our worries.  Our presentation went smoothly, and most importantly to plan. 

The competition was strong, and the other teams had some really good ideas.  When it came to first and second place we couldn't be sure where we stood, but we prevailed.  Soon after, we were swamped with media and became the center of attention.

How much work will do we have ahead of us?  Well... it looks like we're going to have to go back to the drawing board.