Microsoft has announced the winners of the Middle East and Africa (MEA) Regional Final of the 2018 Imagine Cup. The three winning teams, representing Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, will travel to the World Final taking place in Seattle, USA from 23 to 25 July. They will compete with the best teams from across the globe for the title of World Champion, a cash prize of up to $100,000 and the chance to take home the Imagine Cup.
Whittled down from seven thousand team entries across the region, six teams hailing from Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey competed in the Regional Final. This round of the Imagine Cup took the form of an online competition, in which each team’s submission was judged based on its innovation capacity, technology level, feasibility and concept. With the theme of this year’s Imagine Cup being “Code with a Purpose”, the purpose of the projects also played a critical role.
“It’s always great to see how students and new technologies meet to ‘Code with a Purpose’ and help our society and the world be a better place,” says Mik Chernomordikov, Engineering and Innovation Director, Microsoft Middle East and Africa. “Being one of the judges at the Regional Final, I was happy to see great ideas, new technologies and real problems solved by students across the region. Imagine Cup is the biggest global technology student competition, and I wish winning teams good luck at the upcoming World Final and on making their current projects successful products in the future.”
Preventing miscarriages with data analytics
The team from Pakistan has built a wearable foetal health monitoring system – “Fe Amaan” – that helps prevent miscarriages by using data analytics. The wearable kit, comprising a belt and mobile application, works an IoT model equipped with sensors and connected to a handheld application integrated with Azure databases.
“Fe Amaan provides remote and automated analysis of foetal health on a regular basis without harm to the mother or foetus. When there are anomalies in heart rates or movement patterns, the system generates alerts, enabling timely precautionary measures,” explains the team. “Our aim is that this assistive technology will help reduce the chances of having intrauterine deaths and still births all over Pakistan.”
Speaking of the team’s experience during the Regional Final, the team says the other innovative projects made it an exciting and tough competition. They are now looking forward to the World Final.
“At the World Final, we hope to meet mentors from various industrial backgrounds, gain their feedback and utilise it. We are also looking forward to representing Pakistan globally.”
Improving agricultural efficiency
Turkey’s winning submission is set to help avoid inefficiencies in agriculture. “Proland” aims to determine which crops will be optimal for farming, using historical precipitation rates, temperature and yield values.
“We feel the need to compare our options even when we buy a simple electronic device. Farmers don’t have this option and they are making decisions that impact all of us: ‘What should I plant?’ The wrong decision on what to plant not only leads to underproduction, it also leads to waste of water, time and effort.” says the team. “Imagine if the farmers could have an application in their hands that advises them on the best crop to maximise efficiency, without the need for any hardware.”
The team attributes the success of their project thus far to being able to use Microsoft Azure to develop it.
“When we started the project, we were worried about the implementation of our solution. However, after our first experience with Azure, everything became simpler and clearer in our minds. We quickly and successfully implemented our concept and started the testing phase, where we were able to talk to farmers and observe their experiences with our solution,” explains the team.
Making the beach a safer place to be
The winning submission from Egypt, called “Beach Safer” aims to help lifeguards be more effective in maintaining beach safety. It is a smart, integrated IoT solution that provides real-time monitoring and supervision of swimmers. This allows for quick, accurate drowning detection and immediate rescue.
Speaking of their experience in this year’s Imagine Cup, the team comments, “Competing and winning in the National and Regional finals were our first steps to showcase and boost our solution. We received very useful feedback and motivation from the local and regional judges, which helped us to develop and enhance our solution.”
The team is excited to move on to the World Final, saying, “We expect to receive more useful feedback from the World Final judges, gain more experience from the process and have fun!”
This year marks the 16th annual Imagine Cup. The competition aims to give young developers the opportunity to acquire new and critical technical, business and team-building skills. It is open to 29 countries across the world and calls on student teams of three to come up with an idea for a technology application that solves a real world problem, create a business plan and bring the concept to life.
For more information on Microsoft’s 2018 Imagine Cup, click here.
