Are your students ready to change the world?

At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every student on the planet to achieve more. We believe that students today will be the changemakers of tomorrow, so empowering them with the tools and opportunities to learn new skills and be future leaders is core to our mission.

That’s why we’ve extended Imagine Cup to younger students with the Imagine Cup Junior Artificial Intelligence for Good Challenge!

Register Now!

What is Imagine Cup Junior?

Imagine Cup Junior 2021 provides students aged 13 to 18 the opportunity to learn about technology and how it can be used to positively change the world. The global challenge is focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI), introducing students to AI and Microsoft’s AI for Good initiatives so they can come up with ideas to solve social, cultural and environmental issues. It’s also a great opportunity to encourage students to develop and practice 21st century skills like communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity.

Team Participation

Educators, Instructors and Parents/Guardians can submit applications for their students, submissions must be an original solution that each team of one (1) to six (6) students have created. For the submission to qualify for the 2021 Imagine Cup Junior, each application must comply with the challenge rules and regulations.

Register now! To receive access to an exciting calendar of virtual events and learning materials:

AI Webinars and Hackathons

Starting in November we will have a series of AI webinars to guide students through the world of AI. Dates and times are displayed below, educators can register to get the webinar join links and access to recordings here.

Webinar 1: Introduction to AI and Machine Learning

Access recording here.

Webinar 2: AI Applications in real life: How AI is already changing your life

Access recording here.

Webinar 3: AI for Good: How to change the world with AI

Access recording here.

Hackathon: Get your projects built!

Imagine Cup Junior for Beginners

New this year, the Imagine Cup for Beginners kit has been introduced for educators and students who are new to AI and would like to take part in the challenge. Educators can use this step by step kit to run their students through the Imagine Cup Junior content in 5 x 45 minute lessons.

Educator and Student Resources

For those who would like to take their learning further we have educator guides, student guides and lesson presentations for the following modules:

Build your project in a day

An exciting student ready challenge presentation with accompanying educator resources guiding them through building their project through to submission.

This will contain inspirational videos from the Microsoft AI team and Education team to guide the students as they build out their projects.

The Wick Editor Stretch project

The Wick Editor is a free, open-source tool for creating games, animations, and everything in-between! As part of Imagine Cup Junior, Microsoft has partnered with Wick to give students the ability to enhance their code with artificial intelligence. Using video, image, and text analysis, the Wick Editor enables a connection to Azure Cognitive Services to help students make their games and animations even more fun to interact with. Bring your ideas to life and tell a story with the Azure enabled Wick Editor for your hack this year!

Challenge Recognition

We are excited to see the ideas students come up with, the top 10 submissions globally will be announced in 10 June 2021 and will receive an Imagine Cup Junior trophy and a group mentoring session with a Microsoft Vice President.

Timeline