Every year, hundreds of thousands of students from across the world sign up for the Microsoft Imagine Cup – the world’s premier student technology competition to showcase their innovative ideas that can bring a positive change to the world. This year’s regional finals will be held in Singapore on February 19-21, 2020 where ten finalists from the Imagine Cup Asia Regional Semi-finals will present their original technology solutions and compete for a prize totalling over USD 20,000 in cash plus Azure credits. The teams will also participate in an Entrepreneur Day and receive in-person pitch training from the U.S. Department of Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST). The top two teams will win spots in the 2020 Imagine Cup World Championship in Seattle, Washington to present their projects for a chance to take home USD 100,000 and a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella.
This year, two teams from India are stepping up for the global representation – Blume-India and TAZS India. These teams will represent India on the regional platform in Singapore and are the brightest and most talented students who have been selected from across premiere engineering colleges in India. These teams come from prestigious engineering colleges from across the country. These students have an in-depth knowledge of AI and emerging technologies with a focus on solving real-world problems for a wider impact, helping them to be nominated for the Microsoft Imagine Cup Regional finals.
Details of the two teams representing India at the Microsoft Imagine Cup regional finals in Singapore are:
- Blume-India – Vellore Institute of Technology
Seguro Droga: The team developed an Android application which lets patients scan a drug’s RFID card to determine authenticity using Hyperledger Fabric on Azure VM, manage their drug purchases, and set filters for allergens, using Blockchain. This app can also help end users to check the authenticity of any medicine / drug and can and help find out at which point in the supply chain the fault took place (if any).
- TAZS – Bennett University
FaceTag: The team created a solution for bottlenecked gateways in a daily commute: specifically the entry and exit points at metro stations. The idea is to use Azure’s Cognitive API (facial recognition) to have an automated payment system for public transportation (using an online wallet). This app will enable commuters to simply walk in, have their face scanned, and have the toll deducted automatically from their wallet.
For the past 17 years, the Imagine Cup has been the world’s premier student technology competition. Since 2003, Microsoft has provided a global platform for students to turn their dreams into reality. Students from across the globe build amazing teams to bring their biggest, boldest ideas to life. Working with mentors and industry leaders, they get feedback to further hone and develop their projects. In 2018, Indian students won the Big Data award at Imagine Cup World Championship for their innovative drug authentication app – DrugSafe.