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Imagine Cup 2012 Winners Announced

By TechTaffy Desk

[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

Microsoft announced the winners of the 10th annual Imagine Cup, Microsoft’s student technology competition. Twenty-three percent of Imagine Cup projects this year were created to improve the lives of individuals with disabilities such as visual and hearing impairments and diseases that limit a human’s physical mobility.

Software and Game Design Winners at Imagine Cup 2012: Team quadSquad from the Ukraine took top honors in the Software Design Competition with its device, Enable Talk, which uses a pair of gloves equipped with 15 flex sensors and a microcontroller that continuously recognize sign language patterns, which are then transmitted via Bluetooth to a Windows Phone device that uses the Microsoft Speech API and Bing API to translate the signs into audio.

Teams competed in two Game Design competitions — Game Design: Xbox/Windows and Game Design: Phone. In Game Design: Xbox/Windows, TANG Thai, from Thailand, focused on protecting the environment and preventing deforestation. In Game Design: Phone, Drexel Dragons, from the United States, created a game designed to teach math and problem solving to elementary school students.

The following are the respective winners in the core Imagine Cup Competitions:

  • Software Design: QuadSquad (Ukraine), Coccolo (Japan), Wi-GO (Portugal).
  • Game Design – Xbox/Windows: TANG Thai (Thailand), The Doers (Brazil), Hotfix (Belgium)
  • Game Design – Phone:  Drexel Dragons (United States), Ecosia (France), Turtle Games (Hungary)

Respective Winners of Imagine Cup Challenges

  • IT Challenge: Alexandru Ticlea (Romania), Sherif Talaat (Egypt), Joshua Sim (Singapore)
  • Kinect Fun Labs Challenge: Team Interlab (Brazil), Team Whiteboard Pirates (United States), Team Flexifly (Poland)
  • Windows Azure Challenge: Virtual Dreams Azure (Brazil), Complex (Romania), The Klein Team (Algeria)
  • Windows Metro Style App Challenge:  Virtual Dreams Metro (Brazil), NLife (Ukraine), TokTok (Korea)
  • Windows Phone Challenge:  Vivid (Egypt), The Stack (Poland), Aaltovation (Finland)
Other Awards
  • The People’s Choice Award: This is the only Imagine Cup award that is determined by the public, and was won by the D Labs team from India, who created software to help dyslexic children use games to learn more effectively by using Kinect for Xbox 360.
  • Health Awareness Award winners: Italian Ingenium Team (Italy)
  • Environmental Sustainability Award winners: Greenway (Germany)
The Imagine Cup 2012 competition winners were announced at the Imagine Cup World Festival and Awards Ceremony at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, in front of 106 student teams. The event was the culmination of a five-day celebration of technology, teamwork and innovation. More than 350 students from 75 countries traveled to Sydney after competing in local and online events. Cash prizes totaling approximately $175,000 were awarded across eight competition categories. Imagine Cup 2012 sponsors included Avanade, Bing, Bradesco, Coca-Cola, Microsoft Studios, Nokia and Windows.
 Russia will host the 11th annual Imagine Cup in St. Petersburg in July 2013.

[Image: One of three all-female teams in the Imagine Cup’s Software Design category, Team Grawesome from Oman built a mobile application that uses GPS to track when blood banks have shortages. | Image Courtesy: Microsoft]

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