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University dominates Imagine Cup finals

Tuesday 1 May 2012, 6:37PM

By University of Auckland

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A student from The University of Auckland is a member of the winning team who will represent New Zealand at the 2012 Microsoft Imagine Cup worldwide finals in Sydney in July.

In-Hwan Kim, a fourth year software engineering student, from the Faculty of Engineering, is a member of Team Mobile Eye who beat 15 other teams to win the New Zealand finals of the world’s largest technology competition.

Teams from The University of Auckland also took out second, third and fourth places at the student technology competition held at the Auckland Town Hall, last night.

In-Hwan and his teammates, AUT graphic design major Jade Tan, and AUT maths and engineering student Aakash Polra, impressed judges with their innovative project that aims to provide assistance to blind New Zealanders.

"This year was an extremely exciting and intense competition with more than 400 entries – the most New Zealand entries to date," says Scott Wylie, Director of the Developer and Platform Group for Microsoft New Zealand.

"Team Mobile Eye stood out with their imagination, passion, creativity and a well thought out solution to address the issues faced by people who are blind. The team is now aiming for the worldwide finals and we expect the international judges will be very impressed with this New Zealand team's work."

New Zealand has done well at the previous worldwide finals, with students from The University of Auckland finishing in the top six last year and third in 2010.

The Microsoft Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition, challenging students from around the globe to develop technologies that help solve the world’s toughest problems. Now in its 10th year, it is a global competition with more than 358,000 students from 183 countries participating.

Results:
Second place – Team Thought-Wired from the University of Auckland with their solution NOUS, which empowers individuals with severe physical disabilities to communicate and interact.
Third place – Team Aura from the University of Auckland with their modular solution that detects abnormal breathing patterns and could revolutionise the diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnea.
Fourth place – Team Connect from the University of Auckland with a communication system that responds immediately following a disaster, keeping you connected to loved ones.