Project ideas: How to come up with one.

Have you ever wanted to do projects but can't seem to get past the first step, which is coming up with a project idea? It can be quite daunting trying to come with a project idea and even more so when you plan on entering the project into major competitions like the Microsofts Imagine Cup competition. So in light of that, I will be giving some ways in which you can come up with one;

Inspiration from existing problems
The secret to a good project is one that aims at and has the prospects of solving an already existing problem. Therefore, a sure way to come up with an idea would be to draw inspiration from the challenges you see around you and try to solve them.

Exploring Github
Github has an extensive pool of projects worked on by different people and it, therefore, serves as a source of ideas either from the trending repositories and deciding to work on that or even identifying areas of improvement in an existing project. Improving the existing project could mean either taking a single feature from it and adding significant functionality to make it a project on its own or identifying a flaw in the existing project and improving on it significantly.

Brainstorming with colleagues
Forums such as hackathons or engaging your colleagues can serve to give insight on the potential project you could take up. A hackathon is even more beneficial because in addition to the opportunity to engage other people with the same interest it provides an opportunity to carry out projects to the end.

Searching the Internet
This could be the most obvious one yet but my list would not be complete without it. The internet is full of project ideas in different fields, some explored others not. It can be overwhelming so the trick is to choose one which you will most likely enjoy and also can potentially solve some common problems.