Kinect entered the Guinness Book of World records in the very first month of its launch. And its been such a success story for Microsoft ever since. Taking this forward, Microsoft, in partnership with TechStars, recently announced the Kinect Accelerator program for developers, startups working on the Kinect technology and entreprenuers.
According to Microsoft, This program supports entrepreneurs, engineers and innovators to bring to life a wide range of business ideas that leverage the limitless possibilities Kinect enables.
After an initial screening process, ten finalists will be chosen for this unique three-month incubation program running from March to May, 2012 in Seattle, WA. Also, every company participating in the Kinect Accelerator will receive an investment of $20,000, an Xbox development kit, the Windows Kinect SDK, office space, all the resources of BizSpark, technical training and support, and mentorship from entrepreneurs, investors and Microsoft executives intensely focused on making their business a success. At the end of the program, each company will get an opportunity to present at an Investor Demo Day to angel investors, venture capitalists, Microsoft executives, media and industry influentials. Awesome!
The qualifying criteria for the Kinect Accelerator program is as follows:
- Any Kinect-enabled application on Windows or Xbox that can be a commercial business
- Manufacturing to retail, education to healthcare, art installations to gaming, social to interactive play…hmmm, the possibilities
- Can be cloud-hosted, on any platform, but needs to be an application
- Could be one view of an application that may also have a web UI, mobile UI, etc
- Kinect-controlled applications, like what you have on your phone, but on a big screen or a computer screen
- Content you might expect to consume in your living room or in an operating room
We think this is a great opportunity to learn more and showcase the power of Kinect. If you too think so and want to take part, log on to its official page for more information. Do remember, 25th January 2012 is the last for receipt of applications ( And no – the world is not going to end in 2012).
All the best! 🙂
