Winners of Microsoft's Next-Gen PC Design Competition

The inspiration for Allen Wong's Next-Gen PC Design Competition entry came from a visit to a remote village in Kenya.

"A hand-painted sign on the local elementary school promised 'Computer Training,' but the local villagers told me that it was false advertising," recalls Wong.

"The school didn't even have windows, much less Windows!"

Wong, who with design partner Matt Conway went on to create the BulbPC, one of the competition winners, was inspired by his experience in Kenya to develop a new and revolutionary PC design that can meet the needs for computing and computer education in the developing world as well as address the IT requirements of first-world workplaces.

Wong's Kenyan inspiration mirrors that of other winners in this year's Next-Gen PC Competition, a Microsoft-sponsored event that challenges young design professionals and industrial design students to think beyond the constraints of traditional computing form factors.

"This year's competition winners have envisioned a brave new world of computing," says Kevin Eagan, general manager of Microsoft's Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) Marketing Group.

"Through insightful design, the winning entries take computing to bold new places and to traditionally underserved audiences."