A first year accounting student at Charles Sturt University (CSU) has made it to the finals of a national marketing competition to promote the computer technology known as Kinect. Based on an assignment for the subject Marketing and Society, Mr Will Gummer from Junee entered the Microsoft Protégé Challenge, which is open to undergraduate students in Australia. The challenge involves the marketing of the Kinect application for use outside the gaming industry such as in health or education. Mr Gummer recently made it through to the competition’s semi finals with a 10 minute presentation via video-conference. “I did my proposal on the Virtual Distance Learning Classroom, which is a Kinect application designed for distance education students. It puts both the lecturer and students into a virtual classroom where they can see their 3D images. These avatars can raise their hand if they have a question and can also use computer-simulated visual cues,” said Mr Gummer. Marketing lecturer Ms Elizabeth Dunlop said, “This is an outstanding achievement for a first year student to make it though to the finals of the national competition. Will should be congratulated for taking on this ‘real-life’ marketing challenge during one of his early subjects for his degree.”