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Project: Outcrypt: Email Encryption as an Add-In for Outlook 2003 & 2007 The Challenge Describe the situation, challenge or problem you or your team faced. Email is not thought of as a secure method of sending confidential information. Servers can be made secure, firewalls can be put up front, but once the email is received, it can sit on a laptop, BlackBerry, cell phone, or PDA, for anyone to see. The emails can be grabbed en-route as well. Formula1 teams have endured major fines from leaked information. Public companies incur insider trading risks when information is leaked to the wrong party. Insurance and financial companies have had losses of private information sent to the wrong party. The Solution Describe how your solution helped overcome the challenge. Tell us about the innovative ways you used technology to create this solution.
What obstacles or roadblocks were overcome? Is the solution reusable elsewhere? Be specific! The solution is to encrypt the email at the source. We created an Outlook Add-in to encrypt email so that the only people who can read your email are the intended recipients. This Outlook 2003/2007 Add-in uses highly secure AES-256 CBC encryption technology. The key is not saved in your, or the email recipient's, computers or servers, or embedded in the software. There is a unique key for every recipient, so one recipient can not read another's email. The key is not available to any administration staff. Key retrieval is done inside an AES-256-CBC tunnel, and never stored. Notification or account usage, if appropriate, is on your Outlook 207 Email toolbar. The Results What positive impact did your solution have in the workplace, the community, or at home? The email remains encrypted until the intended recipient decrypts it, and it can be re-encrypted to protect its information, but it is never stored on some other intermediate server. This add-in negates the need for awkward VPNs, unruly hardware requirements, or any interruption in your daily business flow. The encryption process is very quick. You can set up the entire service within your environment, or simply ‘subscribe’ to the service from our environment. There simply is not a more secure way of sending & receiving email, to or from anyone, anywhere, in the world. For a quick demo, see: http://www.devantec.com/demo/ Other Information Feel free to let the community know about any interesting or humorous tidbits you feel will add to your submission. This was difficult. haha. What isn't, when the end result seems so simple? Products Used To help the community understand the scope of your project, please select the technologies utilized. Windows/Web Client, Development Platform/Tools Web Technologies, Office Productivity Security Systems, MS Office 2003 Primary Interop Assemblies, MS VSTO 2005 SE, Outlook 2007 Primary Interop Assemblies, Visual Studio Tools for the Office system 3.0, MS VSTO Office Interop Extension Libraries 1.0 Submission Hyperlink http://www.microsoft.com/canada/igniteit-awards/view_submissiondetails.aspx?id=339 
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Project: Elderly (Alzheimer) mental fitness The Challenge Describe the situation, challenge or problem you or your team faced. My mother have major stroke major, leave her right side of body total unmovable. She needs total care. I see my mom can feels and think except she can't move. Then I wonder how good her consciousness? I asked neurologist how medical/psychology to measure our consciousness . She said no real magic number or chart to define our consciousness, even in if MRI couldn't tell; instead of ask her what is your name, where you are .. etc. The worst moment come, she is not using her brain and getting worst when months. no medicine yet can slow down. mental deteriorate. I felt terrible and knowing my mother can still feel and see. Now, but she just sit slowly sad and wait her brain cell slowly die away. The Solution Describe how your solution helped overcome the challenge. Tell us about the innovative ways you used technology to create this solution.
What obstacles or roadblocks were overcome? Is the solution reusable elsewhere? Be specific! (1)Neuroplascity and CTI concept, exercise/use it or loss it. (2)Get her brain exercise and find magic number(baseline)! Same concept medical professional to measure our body and and blood pressure in the hospital, they take daily measure and average out. for my mental exercise, it takes 30-40 counts or a week counts, to have Mental Cognitive Index as baseline. These magic number can be used as guideline to measure her mental performance. This mental exercise is focus on memory, attention and spatial vision in our brain, very similar Mini Mental State Exam(MMST in US), I found out later. only difference MMST takes 10-15 mins,The mental exercise take 1 week or 30-40 counts The Results What positive impact did your solution have in the workplace, the community, or at home? It gives sign of release and encouragement for caregiver when they see actual work can be done for Alzheimer or stroke patient. especially when they see patients sign of consciousness recovery and they can express their owm feeling to doctors on his own without any help. it is a pride and dignity by patient. (1)there is another version as demand for people already have mild Alzheimer, The system will shows family pictures instead. (2)Coming work: use multi-touch web cam to stimulate Alzheimer patient from old memory by touching object and rewire his/her brain. Hope in 3 months, prototype demo ready (3) Will create SharePoint WSS 3.0 version for rehab center and elderly home for management control by nurses or social worker , It is 80% done (4)Rehab center or home rehab, can also be benefit and very cost effective Other Information Feel free to let the community know about any interesting or humorous tidbits you feel will add to your submission. Hope it leads to another alternative or pre-test for people family have Alzheimer, can regularly use the system to alert abnormal change in his mental state, MRI image smallest area is one mm of brain area which contains thousands of neurons and synapses , and mental state detect those synapses respond, hope the system can detect those change and alert the user. . (this still need more research ..) (2)In addition, our body shrunk by 10%-30% after 65 years old and increase when we getting older? Can we do anything about it. as old saying, we only use 1/10 of our brain daily, 9/10 of the brain just waiting! Could neuroplascity helps, rewire our brain? At present I have 1 user who have brain tumor last year, after operation, his memory significantly loss for first 3 months. then he tried this mental exercise everyday for 2 months, his MCI gain 30%, also from the latest MRI image shows his brain have brighter color than before. Please visit www.neuroplasticitylab.com. Products Used To help the community understand the scope of your project, please select the technologies utilized. Database Management Development Platform/Tools Web Technologies Collaboration SQL 2008 express, Silverlight 2, Blend2, WCF, vs 2008 web developer Submission Hyperlink http://www.microsoft.com/canada/igniteit-awards/view_submissiondetails.aspx?id=395
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Project: The Community Caregiver Portal Solution by Navantis - Social Networking in Action The Challenge Describe the situation, challenge or problem you or your team faced. Have you ever had a family member or loved one with a chronic disease or an acute condition that relied on you as the main source of constant care? If you have, you may understand the difficulties that a caregiver faces. Caregivers have great difficulty finding services to assist them, finding people that understand their experience, and finding resources to help them better understand what their family member or loved is experiencing. VON understood these difficulties caregivers face and selected Navantis to build an online solution that would alleviate these issues. Navantis faced a difficult challenge: We needed to create a bilingual, collaborative, user-friendly, and informative social networking platform to serve 3 million caregivers across Canada. The portal needed to provide caregivers with valuable resources and a network of support. The Solution Describe how your solution helped overcome the challenge. Tell us about the innovative ways you used technology to create this solution.
What obstacles or roadblocks were overcome? Is the solution reusable elsewhere? Be specific! Navantis built a bilingual social networking platform using MOSS 2007. The platform allowed the Canadian caregiver community to: •Connect with other caregivers across Canada, for information sharing and moral support •Create highly customizable features specific to the caregiver and make a profile visible to other users •Quickly and easily update the portal with information on new diseases and condition-related content •Ask health questions to a team of experts •Access features to create an eHealth record based on the caregiver’s observations and understanding of a patient’s conditions •Communicate a patient’s health conditions directly to doctors and nurses through the discussion board and other Web 2.0 features •Experience a sense of belonging through collaboration and support The goal of Caregiver Connect was to enhance autonomy, independence, and quality of life for caregivers and their patients. This goal was achieved thanks to the dedicated Navantis team. The Results What positive impact did your solution have in the workplace, the community, or at home? It is estimated that caregivers provide over $5 billion in savings on healthcare costs every year. As such, they are essential to the Canadian healthcare system. However, caregivers often feel isolated due to the sustained challenges of caring for a loved one with an illness or disability over a long duration. Our solution has addressed this problem by providing an interactive link between caregivers and patients, doctors, and nurses. Our portal gives these caregivers a voice, and alleviates their burden by providing a network of support. Now over three million caregivers across Canada have access to a site that allows direct communication with doctors, nurses, and patients. The portal is fully bilingual, and provides access to information and resources that caregivers need to care for themselves, to provide better quality care to their family members and/or friends, and to connect and share with other caregivers through a virtual discussion forum. Other Information Feel free to let the community know about any interesting or humorous tidbits you feel will add to your submission. VON is a not-for-profit, national health care organization and registered charity offering a wide range of community health care solutions, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Navantis was commissioned to build an integrated health services web-based caregiver community portal, using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, to provide a medium where communication between doctors, nurses, and patients is possible. The portal was needed to improve access and provide caregivers with up-to-date, accessible, community specific health information. To access the Community Caregiver Portal, visit www.caregiver-connect.ca. Products Used To help the community understand the scope of your project, please select the technologies utilized. Development Platform/Tools Web Technologies Collaboration Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Submission Hyperlink http://www.microsoft.com/canada/igniteit-awards/view_submissiondetails.aspx?id=332
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Project: Welaptega Reborn The Challenge Describe the situation, challenge or problem you or your team faced. This client based in Halifax was facing enormous challenges trying to keep their infrastructure system up and running. I found out about their issues when I visit their CEO at his cottage and he couldn't even connected remotely to his own email/shared folders. They had 1 x server (SBS 2003) and 2 x server (win 2003) that were totally unbalanced. The SBS server had almost 1 Terabytes of data on it without having any functional backup. Their hard drives were almost full 95% used. However, another server had only 5% used. They did not have any maintenance contract with any IT firm, only Time & Material. Also, everyone had the domain administrator password handy in case they were having issues. The Solution Describe how your solution helped overcome the challenge. Tell us about the innovative ways you used technology to create this solution.
What obstacles or roadblocks were overcome? Is the solution reusable elsewhere? Be specific! We sat down and presented a full scale solution by running SBS 2008 and Hyper-V combined with OCS technologies. Their servers count went from 3 to 6 physicals and 2 virtuals. We even throw on top DPM and SharePoint solutions for keeping documents in one location and secured. I have also added a Blackberry server with OCS functionality on their desktops/notebooks and on their Blackberries as well. I have also removed the Symantec Anti-Virus that wasn't updated anymore for the total Forefront solution (Servers, Clients, SharePoint, OCS and Exchange). The Results What positive impact did your solution have in the workplace, the community, or at home? Today, the client is pleased with the results; in fact they never had any issues since the system is up and running couple weeks before XMAS 2008. We still have some little bits of configuration to complete before presenting them with a maintenance contract for 3 years. We have been helping them since the installation at no charge. Other Information Feel free to let the community know about any interesting or humorous tidbits you feel will add to your submission. We strongly believed that Microsoft came up with brilliant solutions for the Small and Medium businesses (SBS 2008, OCS, SharePoint v3, Forefront, DPM) and they work perfectly all together. Products Used To help the community understand the scope of your project, please select the technologies utilized. Windows/Web Client Virtualization Office Productivity Unified Communication Management Platform Security Systems, Network Infrastructure Systems, SharePoint Submission Hyperlink http://www.microsoft.com/canada/igniteit-awards/view_submissiondetails.aspx?id=112 
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A little while ago I got an email from a friend of mine who works at Dell Canada. It talked about a game they developed in conjunction with us (Microsoft) and Intel that allows you to test your skills and knowledge at protecting a data center from security and other threats.
The new Data Center Defender game offers you an opportunity to test your skills at building server towers to defend against attacks. It is quite addictive and also gives you a chance to challenge your colleagues to see who can do the best job of defending the data center. You could also win a 46” HDTV if you’re really got. To find out more or play the game, go to http://www.dellenterprise.ca/.
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It’s called the Ignite IT Award. And it’s a way for the community to recognize and reward the work that you do. Yes, that‘s not a typo… The community, your peers… They can review any submission and will have the opportunity to vote for their favorites. Voting starts in: 47 days (March 1st 2009). Tic Toc ….
There will be some great prizes but the best part is that you will be able to highlight your successes, your innovating thinking and by the same token, advance your career. Winners will receive the IT Professional grand prize or the Software Developer grand prize—including the Crystal trophy, a Software Kit valued at $1,000, and a prize of $5,000. Plus, all entrants who include a video in their submissions will be entered to win a prize pack valued at over $500 that may include an XBOX 360 Elite and a Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition XBOX game. So go ahead, go to the site Ignite IT Award, submit your stories and tell the world how good you are. We know it. Why not shout it out?
I’m always looking for ways to learn from the successes of others. And if you’re like me, you can review all the submissions for the Ignite IT awards. It may give you ideas; spark interest, who knows...
Don’t make me go out and get you… I will if I have to. But I’d prefer if you all signed up and told us about the wonderful things you guys and gals are cooking up.
Get the glory. Share your I.T. story.
Bookmark this page—submissions posting started on January 5, 2009 and voting begin on March 1, 2009, so check back often!
Cheers!
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Since I started in this role I have heard a lot about the Imagine Cup. Not knowing anything about it, I started looking into it.  Well it turns out it’s a wonderful competition where students from around the world are using their minds, their know-how, their passion, their creativity and – of course... – their imagination to compete and develop innovative technologies. And it’s been happening for seven years... WOW!!
Normally we talk a lot more about technology and solutions for people who are already established in the IT community and workplace. One of the things that makes the Imagine cup special is that it is targeted at students form colleges and universities. The future IT pros. This is an audience that we are paying attention to more and more. To that end I'd like to remind all post secondary students out there that if you want to learn more about the Microsoft technology, out of schools, we have a great vehicle called Dreamspark to get you the tools at no cost. All you need is an ISIC card number and then you can download the software. Anyway... where was I? Ah! Yes. The Imagine Cup... Last year’s theme was "Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment." And you can see the winners here. You may notice something fantastic.... There’s an IT challenge division... "Cool!” This year's theme is "Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today." The United Nations has identified some of the hardest challenges in the world today in its Millennium Goals. Learn more about the eight Millennium Goals here. The Imagine Cup will use these ambitious challenges as a guiding light to inspire change all over the world. Hmmmm!!! Using technology to solve problems... isn’t it what IT Pros do all the time?? Are ready to meet the challenge? I know that I can wait to see what IT Pros in the world will come up with. It will be interesting to see what kind of innovation will take place. And above all, I can’t wait to see folks do things that are inspiring. The Imagine Cup encourages people to develop innovations that can make a difference in the world today. That reminds me of something Simon Sinek, a graduate level strategic communications professor at Columbia University, once told me... "If you inspire people to do the things that inspire them, you can change the world". So, go ahead... check it out here. The registration site is open. Who knows, you could be the next winner. - And maybe... You can change the world... "I wish there had been an Imagine Cup when I was growing up. It gets people involved in seeing that software is changing the world." -Bill Gates
Chairman, Microsoft Corp. Imagine the possibilities.... Cheers! 
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