2014 Award and Challenge Winners
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Awards
The Imagine Cup 2014 Awards recognize outstanding achievement among our participant teams.
Facebook Creativity Award
Code. With Friends. You can reach more people and keep them more engaged with your app by integrating Facebook! Use Facebook Login in your project as a sign-in option and enable users to bring the identity they've cultivated on Facebook to your app. Query the Facebook Graph API to tailor your app experience to the user's preferences, Likes, and other information. Post to the Facebook Open Graph and gain distribution when people's friends see the stories they've shared from your app.
ij Developers
Cyprus
WINNER: FACEBOOK CREATIVITY AWARD
The LADYBUG project is a smart solution for households and organisations to save, monitor and control their electricity consumption and electrical appliances through across all devices via a web application and mobile application. The LADYBUG project will be available to provide users with the necessary technologies and applications order to drive them to use electricity and appliances more efficiently and reduce their consumption through simple and smart solutions.
AppCampus Award
AppCampus is a global mobile application development program led by Aalto University, Finland. Funded by Microsoft and Aalto University, the AppCampus program has been set up to foster the creation of innovative mobile applications for the Windows and Windows Phone ecosystem. Within AppCampus, mobile entrepreneurs can benefit not just from award funding, but also comprehensive coaching, go-to-market support, training in mobile technology, design and usability to create innovative new mobile apps and services.
Tep
Hungary
WINNER: APPCAMPUS AWARD
Tep is a fitness entertaining mobile application in the form of an expanded tracking software linked with a tamagotchi which motivates people to do sports in an enjoyable way. The mobile application provides a customizable companion, a virtual pet for users who is to be taken care of by doing sports: the user earns points by the workouts which can be spend on the foods and accessories of the pet.
Brainy Studio
Russia
WINNER: APPCAMPUS AWARD
TurnOn is the story about alive electrical spark named Turnon, the aim of its life is to provide electricity to the city.
The inspiration for creating this story was the world event "Earth Hour", when whole world turns off the light to remind people about the economical use of electricity. Electricity is all around us, and people are so used to it. They absolutely do not notice and save it. But what if the electricity suddenly disappeared? We decided to develope a game that can model this situation.
The game "TurnOn " - unordinary 2,5D side scroller platformer game, filled with surprise and wonder, memorable design and graphic with original gameplay mechanics and soundtrack. The user has the opportunity to control alive and unusual character that can influence people's lives in a big city without electricity.
Skype Award
At the core of Skype is a belief that useful, universal, wonderful technology like Skype can be used in a variety of ways to make life better. We know from our hundreds of millions of Skype users around the world that they are already using it in countless innovative ways every day to help others. The Skype Awards are meant to tap into that innovative and creative spirit to amongst the Imagine Cup community to deliver new ideas on how to leverage Skype to have a positive social impact.
Every Imagine Cup 2014 World Semifinalist student will receive a $50 Skype credit voucher! In addition, these three World Semifinalist teams have been chosen to receive $5,000 for recording the best Skype video message explaining how they could use Skype to do great things in the world.
Eyenaemia
Australia
WINNER: SKYPE AWARD, DRIVE SOCIAL IMPACT
Eyenaemia is a simple, non-invasive and easily accessible screening tool for anaemia made for use by everyday people. Eyenaemia analyses the conjunctiva and calculates the risk of anaemia by analysing a photo of the eye putting years of medical training into the hands of untrained users.
Code Buzzers
Nepal
WINNER: SKYPE AWARD, LEARNING & EDUCATION
Khetpal is a pseudo Decision Support System that has information about crops planted in different regions. Basically, it provides a graphical view of crops, how it should be planted and how to combat diseases and pests that they might suffer from, by localizing to respective regional language. The system is expected to also help standardize the market value of crops. Our app is mainly targeted to helping the illiterate farmers who wouldn't know what to do with a fancy app which shows lots of information that they can't even read. Our app focuses on Sounds, videos, animations, symbols etc. to explain things rather than text.
Because of less number of experts in rural areas, farmers are unaware of many farming techniques. This limitation leads to low productivity. The only place they can go for help is VDC. Khetpal can be implemented in tele-centers. People can browse through what disease can occur in what season to what plant and how it can be treated. All this information is crowd-sourced through a farmer's forum and expert advisers.
Super Sea Dragons
South Africa
WINNER: SKYPE AWARD, INNOVATE & COLLABORATE
We are developing an Indie Game called Orbit. It's a 2D action-adventure circular platformer game set in the wondrous environment of space. Gameplay is focused on exploration and navigation of small planets, as well as collecting weapons and upgrades to fight for survival. You play as Atlas – Earth’s last hope for finding a new habitat to survive.
Gameplay ties together genres of action, adventure and puzzle with core mechanics focusing on using gravity and momentum to navigate and explore systems of tiny planets. On these planets you fight dangerous hostiles and earn meaningful rewards.
Our game is built in Unity with a focus on crafted artwork and exploratory adventure gameplay. All music and artwork has been originally created by members of our team.
Orbit was originally inspired by Capsized, Super Mario Galaxy, Angry Birds Space and Aether.
Download the free demo: https://orbitgame.co.za/
It's the most wonderful Indie Game you've played in a long time.
Visual Studio Online Boost
The best teams use the best tools. When you use Visual Studio Online you’ve got in-browser access to the latest Microsoft technologies for source code control, agile planning, application analytics, and much more. These are critical tools for developers that hiring managers want to see on your resume and Visual Studio Online is the best way to use those tools right from the cloud, anywhere you go.
These nine World Semfinalist teams have each won $1,000 for using Visual Studio Online!
Genesis
Greece
WINNER: VISUAL STUDIO ONLINE BOOST
Dementia - Tales of Blackthorn Manor is an Online Tactical Roguelike Turn-Based RPG in a Horror Setting.
Each online player chooses one of twelve mysterious characters to explore "The Blackthorn Manor", a creepy old house filled with deadly secrets. Each time an explorer enters a new room he might find something.... or something might find him..! The manor's layout is different each time explorers venture into it, so are the mysteries in each room.
At some random point during the game, one explorer will trigger a scenario called a "curse ". When the curse is revealed, one of the explorers becomes a traitor hell bound to defeat his former fellow explorers. The remaining explorers are left struggling together to defeat the traitor and his curse to survive... or not..!
Dementia has 30 different curses to be revealed, each with their own lore and unique gameplay. In Dementia, you will never play the same game twice... Experience the curse...
LeapKin
Slovakia
WINNER: VISUAL STUDIO ONLINE BOOST
LeapKin is a therapeutic system for children with movement disorders (such as cerebral palsy or apraxia) that aims to improve their motor skills and social skills by playing computer games, controlled by Kinect and Leap Motion sensors, together.
Physical therapists are provided with a web platform that allows them to control the game difficulty and track the progress of the children in their motor skills.
Tutus
Germany
WINNER: VISUAL STUDIO ONLINE BOOST
Tutus [lat.: protected] helps people to have better control over their illnesses and helps them to stay healthy and independent by turning smartphones into virtual medication assistants, able to remind and verify the correct use of prescribed medications.
Medication compliance is a critical factor to the success of medications and treatments. Not taking the medicine as prescribed has a huge impact on the health of a patient and also causes huge costs for health care systems and leads to wastage of medicines which could be used in other parts of the world.
Tutus is an app and service which reminds the user to take their prescribed medicine as specified by the doctor. Instead of only appearing as a simple reminder Tutus user needs to confirm their medicine intake with NFC-technology associated to their prescription bottles. If the user misses to take the medicine on time Tutus can generate automated phone-calls or SMS as a reminder. Tutus also offers to integrate families, friends or caretakers into the reminding process and be alerted if the user didn’t take their medicine.
Also we developed a wearable device the “Tutus Watch” which is connected to the Tutus service via Bluetooth LE or Wifi which brings even more amazing functions to the user. It can automatically log relevant health data so the user can keep track on his stats. Further it also provides a haptic feedback if the medicine is due. Another feature which is even more interesting for older users is that out watch provides automatic fall detection. In case of a fall event the Tutus service tries to reach the user via an automatically triggered phone call. If the user doesn’t answer the phone an emergency contact is called and informs about the situation.
flipped.uy
Uruguay
WINNER: VISUAL STUDIO ONLINE BOOST
Flipped is a cloud-powered platform to create, host and distribute online courses. It is specially meant to enhance classroom experience by giving support to interactive learning techniques (such as flipped classroom and team based learning).
Students can access the platform from any device, go through the course content in a self-paced way and engage with in-class activities; while using an intuitive UI, carefully crafted to maximize usability in a classroom environment.
Teachers can get real-time feedback from their students’ performance and act accordingly, focusing on concepts which show the weakest level of understanding. In addition they can easily author courses using well established and common tools so there is no need to learn something new.
RELOAD.
Algeria
WINNER: VISUAL STUDIO ONLINE BOOST
Reborn Quest CHNOPS is an action-adventure 3D rpg game where you can incarnate Wata, Breeze, Stone or Embers_the four elements of nature. Fight the doomed creatures in a chaotic world using chemistry and unite to defeat the evil Ghazel. A vivid game built around a moving story. But don't believe us, try it yourself ..
Learn n' Earn
Lebanon
WINNER: VISUAL STUDIO ONLINE BOOST
Hatch n’ Catch is the world’s first offline game that combines education with physical game-play and entertainment.
We are introducing a new methodology for children to enjoy the fascinating experience of a real-life chase and to learn with brain-teasing challenges while having fun at the same time.
BiDE Code
Kenya
WINNER: VISUAL STUDIO ONLINE BOOST
teachSpace is a Hybrid Technology powered by the Cloud for education that primarily seeks to solve the Educational gap and increase the productivity of teachers to enable them teach better and to improve the quality of education. teachSpace covers all Teachers, Schools, Students in all Institutions – Primary, Secondary, University and other tertiary institutions. It’s composed of 3 major components:
1. teachSpace Cloud – Contains resources – Books, Exams, Videos, 3D Simulations, Maps, Images …. That are uploaded by publishers
2. Individual and School repositories – these are the individual storage spaces that we store the User content and resources got and synced from teachSpace cloud
3. Client-side software – Mobile-Tablet-PC-Web App-Kinect App
It’s available on almost all platfroms – Mobile – Windows Phone 7/8 – *Android -*iOS , Tablet - WinRT, PC - WinRT, Web App and Kinect App and everything is kept in sync in Real-Time involving notifications. When a school subscribes to teachSpace, we create storage repositories and data banks as well as a Teaching room equipped with a Microsoft Kinect Sensor that the teacher uses to teach. When a teacher or school registers, we link with existing storage cloud services e.g OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox
teachSpace enables seamless sharing, data syncing, Real-Time messaging, Remote Classes and Video Classes
AfriGal Tech
Uganda
WINNER: VISUAL STUDIO ONLINE BOOST
In Uganda alone, 30,000 babies are born annually with sickle cell and 80% of these die before the age of five. This death is because the disease is not diagnosed early and thus not treated due to the low access to diagnosis centres (only the national referral hospital and a few private clinics can do this) and general ignorance about this silent killer of a disease.
mDex is a mobile sickle cell diagnosis tool comprising a mobile app and external compound lense. It allows for quick, easy and affordable diagnosis.
mDex uses computer vision and pattern recognition to diagnose the disease.
Flow
Israel
WINNER: VISUAL STUDIO ONLINE BOOST
Flow is a code-editor extension that integrates the power of the internet into your editor, by helping you search for code-snippets and examples for any programming task. Write in plain English what you want to do, and Flow will immediately paste the code you were looking for.
Flow finds exactly the code-snippet you want, by automating the search in Q&A sites like Stack Overflow, MSDN and more and ranks the code with a unique algorithm.
Challenges
Imagine Cup 2014's Online Challenges offer teams the chance to explore the Software Development Lifecycle, through innovative pitch videos, project blueprints, and user experience design.
Apps For Office Challenge
In partnership with the Microsoft Office team, we challenged students around the world to come up with great concepts for an App for Office. Five teams from Canada, China, India, and Indonesia were chosen as semifinalists who took their winning proposals and got busy coding. The Office team chose two student teams who will bring their projects to Seattle for the Imagine Cup World Finals. These two teams will come to Seattle for the Imagine Cup World Finals where the Office team will judge their projects and decide on first and second place winners. The teams will also get time on campus with members of the Office team to review their projects and prepare to take their next steps towards publication in the Office Store.
iGeek
China
FINALIST: APPS FOR OFFICE CHALLENGE
This toolkit for Computer Science presentations turns PowerPoint into a first-class experience for reviewing code before a team or audience. It adds dynamic features familiar from development environments to PowerPoint including: Syntax Highlighting to automatically color-code function names, variables, etc., based on which language the code belongs to; Code Block Expand/Collapse to display or hide function bodies, classes, and comments during a presentation; Click-Jump to Function and Global Variable Definition so the presenter can click on a function name or global variable and jump to its definition; and Canvas Mode so the presenter can use a pen and eraser during a presentation to sketch and make notes on the code snippet being presented. With these features, anyone making a presentation on programming can greatly improve their talk and use these interactive features to review and discuss the code on screen.
CodeBlue
India
FINALIST: APPS FOR OFFICE CHALLENGE
Representing molecules visually is critical for scientific and academic writing. Molecule Maker provides a library of molecule visualizations in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. These visualizations are available in both 2D and 3D models and can be extensively customized for the needs of the topic before the final result is embedded as an image. You can display the chemical formula, the molecular weight, and much more. For 3D representations you can rotate and zoom the model to focus on just what you need to get the perfect image. Molecules defined in the standard .xyz filetype (Molecular Storage file format) can be imported and rendered. This app will greatly improve documents and presentations for students and lecturers around the world.
Windows & Windows Phone Challenge
Windows and Windows Phone apps are better together. Connected through the cloud with Windows Azure, they enable seamless experiences from PC to laptop to tablet to phone. Developing an app for both platforms is within reach for any student developer and gives you great experience with connected software and cross-platform development.
Pomato Apps
Venezuela
WINNER: WINDOWS & WINDOWS PHONE CHALLENGE
The Patrullaje Inteligente plan is a security model implemented in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela that allows you to communicate directly with police and military forces who are close to you, so that the response of the security forces is much faster and efficient than with the traditional models. Our apps allow you to find and contact the security services nearest you when you need assistance.
User Experience Challenge
In this contest we asked students around the world to dig deep into their project’s user experience: the flow a user encounters with the software, the information architecture of how menus and screens are connected, wireframe examples of a couple of major screens, and finally a visual target showing one example of how the finished software would look.
Below are the winners of each category.
Team HCI/d
United States
WINNER: WORLD CITIZENSHIP
Disasters both natural and man-made are enormously disruptive and harmful. Team HCI/d is composed of four graduate students at Indiana University’s Human Computer Interaction Design program and they asked a great question: what if our mobile devices were directly integrated into civil emergency response systems? Their project envisions how a Windows Phone 8 could notify users of emergencies, direct them to resources such as emergency shelters, document and expose gaps in network coverage, and generally ensure that people know what to do. The team’s designs are clear and concise, acknowledging that in an emergency situation ease of us is critical. We are very proud to award Team HCI/d from the United States the first prize of $3,000 in the World Citizenship category.
Team Silicon
United States
WINNER: GAMES
SocialFi is a fun solution to a common problem: you’re out with your friends for drinks or dinner, but people keep checking their phones. Instead, everyone at the table launches the SocialFi app and sets their phone down. If anyone tries to sneak a peek at their phone, everyone else’s phones are alerted and points are scored by those who resisted temptation! The project includes an intriguing business model where bars and restaurants can offer gift card codes to high-scoring players, meaning those who don’t use their phones in restaurants can be rewarded. Team Silicon from the Savannah College of Art and Design did a great job with their user-experience design documents as well as presenting a truly fun and winning concept, for which we are very proud to award them the first prize of $3,000 in the Games category.
Hiraya
Philippines
WINNER: INNOVATION
Daily commuting is a hassle in any city. Team Hiraya’s project would unify automated information from trains, buses, and taxis so that for any given trip users can find the best available options. Once on their chosen mode of travel, they can then rate the trip, file complaints, plan the next part of their journey, and request emergency assistance. These three students at Treston International College have designed a beautiful app integrating timetables, maps, ratings, and dynamic data that could be the salvation of many busy travelers. We are thrilled to recognize the design skills of Team Hiraya and award them the first prize of $3,000 in the Innovation category.
Pitch Video Challenge
In September we asked students to dream up their next great Imagine Cup project and pitch it to us in a short video. We received submissions from around the world – including 30 from Sri Lanka! – and our judges have chosen our winners.
Team Symbiote
Ireland
WINNER: WORLD CITIZENSHIP
Nyx is a Kinect-powered Windows game designed for patients with Multiple Sclerosis or Muscular Dystrophy. Using motions based on actual physical-therapy techniques, patients play a series of manipulation puzzles designed to retain and improve their physical mobility and control. For pitching us this promising concept to aid people suffering from these diseases, we are very proud to award Team Symbiote from Ireland the first prize of $3,000 in the World Citizenship category.
Team Sticky Bits
Romania
WINNER: GAMES
Grimacizer is a terrific concept: a game you play on your Windows Phone by making outrageous faces at the camera! Using facial-recognition software, Grimacizer challenges players to replicate the crazy faces they see on screen with their own face – and to test their friends to see if they can make better faces faster. For pitching us this ingenious blend of creativity, expression, and technology, we are very proud to award Team Sticky Bits from Romania the first prize of $3,000 in the Games category.
Team Mote Labs
United States
WINNER: INNOVATION
Flinger.co is a clever solution for playing any web or video content you want onto the Smart TV of your choice. Team Mote Labs competed in the United States Imagine Cup National Finals in 2013 with an earlier version of this project. Based on what they learned about the power of Windows Azure and other technologies, Mote Labs re-envisioned their project and have taken it further than ever before. For pitching us this promising consumer media app, we are very proud to award Team Mote Labs from the United States the first prize of $3,000 in the Innovation category.
Project Blueprint Challenge
Hundreds of teams of students from dozens of countries around the world competed in this contest. Each team took a long, hard look at their Imagine Cup project and produced a document that really spelled out what they were making: their concept, target audience, early feedback they've received, competitors, user personas, top user stories, business model, and core technologies.
Here are the winners for each category.
Team Life Up
Brazil
WINNER: WORLD CITIZENSHIP
Team Life Up was very successful in the Imagine Cup 2013 Brazil National Finals and they also earned an Honorable Mention in our recent Pitch Video Challenge. Now they've taken first place with Can Game, a Kinect-based game for helping autistic children learn math, motor, and social skills. Life Up has tested their prototype with real kids, collected valuable feedback, and improved their project greatly. For ongoing improvement, rigorous discipline, and thorough documentation of their progress, we are very proud to award Team Life Up from Brazil the first prize of $3,000 in the World Citizenship category.
Liaison Team
Brazil
WINNER: GAMES
Liaison is an ingenious game about the friendship between a boy and his dog as they explore a challenging landscape of puzzles and adventures. Each has different abilities and they have to work together to solve the puzzles, but the farther apart they get the darker the world becomes. For presenting a great game concept in a thoroughly researched and prepared document, we are very proud to award Liaison Team from Brazil the first prize of $3,000 in the Games category.
YouBeRu
Denmark
WINNER: INNOVATION
An innovative project with the potential to disrupt an established field, YouBeRu uses inexpensive Bluetooth sensors, transmitters, and receivers to provide detailed real-time data on runners in marathons, triathalons, and other competitive movement sports. Athletes carry a tiny sensor that monitors vital signs while transmitting location data to a string of Bluetooth receivers along the course, as well as to spectators who are using the app to crowd-source data. Fans and family members can follow the position of runners precisely while the field of racing gains very detailed data on both movement and position over time. For combining inexpensive off-the-shelf hardware components with cloud-based and crowd-sourced data in a worldwide sport, we are very proud to award Team YouBeRu from Denmark the first prize of $3,000 in the Innovation category.