Microsoft Announces India Winners of the 14th edition of Imagine Cup

New Delhi, India – 25th April, 2016: Microsoft India announced the winners of the India leg of Imagine Cup 2016, after concluding the National Finals held in New Delhi. Imagine Cup is a global student technology competition, and one of Microsoft’s many efforts to transform skill development, nurture budding technologists and foster innovative spirit. Three teams emerged as the winners under each of the three categories – World Citizenship, Gaming and Innovation after an intense contest among 27 teams from across the country.  One grand winner will now be chosen to represent India at the upcoming worldwide finals in July in Seattle, USA, to compete among global teams for a USD 50,000 prize.

Bhaskar Pramanik (Chairman, Microsoft India) and Narendra Bhandari (General Manager, Developer Experience and Evangelism, Microsoft India) with Team KudaPehchano (Indian Institute of Technology Ropar), the winners of the World Citizenship contest at the Imagine Cup 2016 India Finals.
Bhaskar Pramanik (Chairman, Microsoft India), Narendra Bhandari (General Manager, Developer Experience and Evangelism, Microsoft India) and Rohit Thakur (Head-Human Resources, Microsoft India) with Team DIGIY (Kumaun University), the winner of the Gaming contest at the Imagine Cup 2016 India Finals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bhaskar Pramanik (Chairman, Microsoft India), Prashant Shukla (National Technology Officer, Microsoft India) and Narendra Bhandari (General Manager, Developer Experience and Evangelism, Microsoft India) with Team AxeJulius (Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology & Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Engineering), the winners of the Innovation contest at the Imagine Cup 2016 India Finals.
Student winners of the Imagine Cup 2016 India Finals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Congratulating the winners of this year’s national finals, Narendra Bhandari, General Manager, Developer Experience and Evangelism, Microsoft India, said, “Over the last 14 years, Microsoft Imagine Cup has been cultivating a spirit of social and technological entrepreneurship, empowering students to use their creativity to address real societal problems through technology. The participants have shown remarkable effort, zeal and enthusiasm to develop cutting-edge technology solutions to help resolve some of the world’s issues and challenges. I wish the winners and the participating teams the very best and congratulate them on this feat. At Microsoft, we will continue in our commitment to empower youth with opportunities, help them imagine new possibilities and nurture the entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

Imagine Cup 2016 – India Winners
·         World Citizenship o    First Prize: KudaPehchano, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Rupnagar, Punjab

o    Second Prize: Cronos, Manav Rchna University, Faridabad, Haryana

o    Third Prize: The Matrix, Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal, Karnataka

·         Gaming

o    First Prize: DIGIY, Kumaun University, Nainital, Uttarakhand

o    Second Prize: Projector, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi

o    Third Prize: GameLazer, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, Maharashtra

·         Innovation

o    First Prize: AxeJulius, Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology, New Delhi

o    Second Prize: Wizards at Work, NIIT University, Alwar, Rajasthan

o    Third Prize: Liberal, PDM Institutions, Bahadurgarh, Haryana

Microsoft Imagine Cup continues to witness strong participation from India, as well as world over. This year, more than 9500 students participated from 23 states across India in the contest. The winning teams showcased their innovative thinking, technical skills and ground-breaking solutions to address everyday challenges. Team KudaPehchano developed a real-time garbage management system using machine learning and vision techniques, while Team DIGIY developed an interesting game of suspense and Team AxeJulius built an app to publish ebooks and share them with the public. While the World Citizenship category is focused on solving global problems in areas such as health, environment, and human rights, the Innovation category seeks ideas that appeal to consumer audiences, as well as inspire and delight a wider audience. The Games category challenges teams to develop innovations that raise the bar in the global game revolution. This year’s competition included three engaging contests under these three categories – the Hello Cloud Challenge, and the Earth Challenge, in addition to the main competition, to empower students to explore various avenues and platforms to develop and showcase their ideas.

Imagine Cup is one of Microsoft’s many efforts to transform skill development, nurture budding technologists and foster collaborative and innovative spirit.  Now in its 14th year, this global technology competition boasts of several success stories emerging from the competition. Last year, CodeBlue, an Indian team, bagged second place in the Apps for Office Challenge at the Imagine Cup 2014 Worldwide Finals held in Seattle on July 31, 2014. Team CodeBlue was awarded a cash prize worth USD 3,000 for their innovative app – Molecule Maker, which provides a library of molecule visualizations in World, Excel and Powerpoint, enabling the representation of molecules visually. After competing in the Imagine Cup in 2009, Mrityunjay Bhadauria launched his project into a company, EDUKINECT. Based in Hyderabad, the company provides an educational service platform to help more than 20,000 students be future-ready. The business has grown by 400% annually – supporting educational services in more than 150 engineering campuses across India.

About Microsoft Imagine Cup

Microsoft Imagine Cup is the company’s premier technology program and competition providing opportunities for student technologists, developers and aspiring entrepreneurs from all academic backgrounds to collaborate, develop a technology application, create a business plan and gain a keen understanding of what is needed to bring a concept to market. Imagine Cup is a year-long activity open to students across the globe. The competition begins with local, regional and online contests, followed by screening of best projects from each country and with winners from these legs participating in the global finals. Over the past fourteen years, more than 1.7 million students from more than 120 countries have participated in the Imagine Cup. More information about Imagine Cup can be found at http://www.imaginecup.com.

About Microsoft India

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) Microsoft is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft set up its India operations in 1990. Today, Microsoft entities in India have over 7,000 employees engaged in sales and marketing, research and development, and customer services and support across ten Indian cities – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune.

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