Past Student Spotlights  May 2005 Erquiaga & Santos Win in Redmond Cal Poly Orfalea College of Business seniors Josh Erquiaga and Ryan Santos placed third in the western region and took home $500 at the recent Imagine Cup national competition sponsored by Microsoft. Erquiaga and Santos entered their design for a computer program that uses the Google search engine to obtain detailed contact information about charities. Erquiaga and Santos' software program will work in conjunction with the Charity Window Website, a senior project headed by OCOB Associate Dean Doug Cerf. The Charity Window Web site was designed to be a repository of information for donors and charities. The students' program scours the internet for contact and e-mail information for charities as well as information on how to verify and add information in the Charity Window database. Adding this new level of data will help ensure more accurate search results on the Web site, providing prospective donors with the information needed to donate to their desired charity. "Our professor, Ken Griggs, told us that he thought we had a pretty unique idea, and then told us about the Imagine Cup contest. We thought that it would be fun to challenge ourselves and to join the competition, and gain experience from competing against national and international participants," said Erquiaga. The two students participated in various activities at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wa., May 21-22, including keynote speeches by Microsoft executives, a campus tour, and a project fair where they showed their application to Microsoft product teams. Santos & Erquiaga Win in Redmond Cal Poly Orfalea College of Business seniors Josh Erquiaga and Ryan Santos placed third in the western region and took home $500 at the recent Imagine Cup national competition sponsored by Microsoft. Erquiaga and Santos entered their design for a computer program that uses the Google search engine to obtain detailed contact information about charities. Erquiaga and Santos’ software program will work in conjunction with the Charity Window Website, a senior project headed by OCOB Associate Dean Doug Cerf. The Charity Window Web site was designed to be a repository of information for donors and charities. The students’ program scours the internet for contact and e-mail information for charities as well as information on how to verify and add information in the Charity Window database. Adding this new level of data will help ensure more accurate search results on the Web site, providing prospective donors with the information needed to donate to their desired charity. “Our professor, Ken Griggs, told us that he thought we had a pretty unique idea, and then told us about the Imagine Cup contest. We thought that it would be fun to challenge ourselves and to join the competition, and gain experience from competing against national and international participants,” said Erquiaga. The two students participated in various activities at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Wa., May 21-22, including keynote speeches by Microsoft executives, a campus tour, and a project fair where they showed their application to Microsoft product teams.