2026 Imagine Cup Mentor

I’m thrilled to share that I’ve been selected as an official mentor for the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2026 semifinalists. This is my first year participating in the Imagine Cup, and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

For those unfamiliar, the Imagine Cup is Microsoft’s flagship global student startup competition. It’s been running for over two decades, bringing together student founders from around the world to build real solutions to real problems using Microsoft technologies. Think of it as a launchpad where students take bold ideas and turn them into working products with the potential to scale. Past alumni have gone on to raise funding, win global recognition, and create tools that are making a difference in everyday lives.

This year’s competition attracted more than 1,700 team submissions from students across the globe, making the path to the semifinals incredibly competitive. The 2026 edition features two tracks:

• Scale, for student startups that already have traction with users or revenue, and
• Launch, for early-stage teams still refining their minimum viable product.

The World Champion on the Scale path takes home $100,000 and a mentorship session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, while the Launch path winner receives $50,000.

As part of the Builder Series, Microsoft assembled a panel of Microsoft MVPs and Regional Directors to serve as mentors for the semifinalist teams. As both an MVP and RD myself, I’m honored to be part of that group alongside some truly impressive peers from across the tech industry. Our role is to help these student founders sharpen their thinking, pressure-test their assumptions, and strengthen their path forward.

A great example of the semifinalist teams is Snailly Labs, a team from Universitas Komputer Indonesia. They’re building adaptive cybersecurity tools designed to protect children ages 5 to 14 from harmful online content. What sets them apart is their approach: rather than relying on one-size-fits-all parental controls, they empower families and schools to define what “safe” means for their own context, with inclusive design and multilingual support built in. It’s exactly the kind of thoughtful, human-centered innovation that makes this competition so compelling.

I’m really looking forward to networking with the semifinalists and the other mentors, exploring the solutions these teams have built, and doing what I can to help the next generation of founders move their ideas forward. Stay tuned for more updates as the competition progresses toward the World Championship later this year!