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Uganda’s Winsenga has won $ 50,000 Microsoft Imagine Cup Grant to help more pregnant women access ultrasounds services to detect pregnancy related problems like ectopic pregnancies or abnormal fetal heart beats.
Winsenga team comprise of Aaron Tushabe, Joshua Okello and Josiah Kavuma (Team Cipher256). The three are students at Makerere University’s College of Computing and Information Sciences and had the support of the Microsoft Innovation Centre-Uganda.
The trio received the award at the Social Innovation Summit on December 4th in Silicon Valley, USA. They were also given software, cloud computing services, solution provider support, premium Microsoft BizSpark accounts and have open access to the Microsoft Innovation Centers and Microsoft’s network of investors, NGO partners and business partners.
The Microsoft Imagine Cup Grant will help the team transform Winsenga into a social enterprise or nonprofit to address the issue they forwarded. Imagine Cup and the grants are part of Microsoft’s YouthSpark program, which is the company’s commitment to reach 300 million youths in the next three years through technology, training, and experiences that empower them to imagine and realize their full potential. Among the applicants for this grant, 13 teams were initially selected as finalists having received the highest marks based on a combination of criteria: impact & viability, team quality & motivation, solution design & motivation and problem definition.
TeamCi[pher256 was among the only two teams in the top 20 competitors at this year’s Imagine Cup final held in Australia. It also became the first East and Southern Africa to enter the second round at the Worldwide Finals ever. It was also history to for Winsenga to be among the top 10 overall.
They also showcased their innovation at the ITU Telecom World 2012 in Dubai on October 14-18, 2012 and at Demo Africa on October 25 to 26.
