- The RE-Team won a $5000 cash prize at the Imagine Cup Qatar 2022 finals on Saturday, 26 February 2022.
- The RE-Team will go on to compete in the world finals of the competition in Seattle.
- Six teams competed in the finals of the 7th local edition.
27 February, 2022; Doha, Qatar – Microsoft Qatar announced the winners of the 7th Imagine Cup Qatar 2022. The RE-Team from Qatar University won the first place and will represent Qatar in the Worldwide finals in Seattle for the chance to win 100,000 USD and a mentoring special session with Microsoft’s Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella.
Their app The RE-Team Software, in the Earth category, aims to provide durable and efficient robots where one is dedicated to detect and sort different kinds of garbage on a conveyor belt using Microsoft Azure Custom Vision Service and the other encourages the public to throw their garbage in the correct bin. The Re-Team walked away with a cash prize of 5,000 USD.
Expressing their excitement to have won the first place, RE-Team said: “We finally made it! We are now one-step closer to making Qatar look futuristic with our earth-friendly project. It is exciting to see interactive and entertaining robotics bins in malls encouraging people to actually categorize their garbage. It will most likely attract children to throw their trash in the right bin and get rewarded. Our project has the ability to raise a generation that takes recycling into great consideration.”
In the second place came Oryx Team from Qatar University for their application Qalbee in the Health category. Qalbee is a mobile system (smartwatch and smartphone application) for the early prediction of heart disorder risk. The Oryx Team won 3,000 USD.
Oryx Team said “Built on Microsoft Azure, our heart disorder risk predictor app ‘Qalbee’ keeps your heart in your hands.” The team expressed their heartfelt thanks to Microsoft and its training partner Zaka AI for this wonderful experience.
And in third place was Team Trojan from Qatar University for their Trojan Wave app in the Education category. Trojan Wave is a chat bot that helps students choose a major. Team Trojan received a prize of 2,000 USD.
Team Trojan voiced their pride in winning; they explained their project saying “Most students are faced with choosing a university major and moving between majors, we wanted to save their time by helping them get the appropriate answer and choose a major.”
Imagine Cup, the world’s premier student technology competition, aims to deliver educational, entrepreneurial and employment opportunities for youth. This year’s edition, which marked the 20th anniversary of the tournament globally, included technical skilling on two of the most sought-after digital skills worldwide: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals delivered by Microsoft’s learning partner Zaka.
The premier competition acts as a platform for young developers in the country to showcase innovative, world-changing solutions before industry experts. Participants were tasked with leveraging Microsoft’s cutting-edge technologies to deliver innovative solutions to some of the world’s pressing challenges in areas related to our environment, education, health and lifestyle.
Over 130 students participated virtually in round 1 of Imagine Cup Qatar 2022, with only nine teams moved to round 2 and just six teams made it to the finals.
The panel of judges for Qatar Imagine Cup 2022 finals included Mr. Hassan Al-Sayed, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Dr. Juliet Ibrahim, Director of E-Health at the Ministry of Public Health and Mr. Karim Talhouk, Regional Head of Cloud Solutions at Microsoft.
The Imagine Cup Qatar 2022 wraps up as Microsoft prepares to make its Azure cloud services available from its new datacenter region in Qatar, which will empower young people in Qatar with reliable, scalable cloud to help them grow and expand their business.
The technology provider also is also preparing to launch a brand new state-of-the-art skilling center that will house all Microsoft learning and skilling programs, as part of the company’s mission to upskill 50,000 people in Qatar on future technologies within the next five years.
