10 university teams from Africa are part of the 87 that competing in the 11th annual Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals for $1,000,000 in cash prizes and other awards from Microsoft Corp..
The teams from Africa include Ask Design from Algeria under the World Citizenship category. UMA from Angola under Games. Tandabala from Botswana under World Citizenship. MASKed Ninjas from Egypt under the Innovation category. Team PI Craft from Kenya under the Innovation category. GreenMust from Morocco under Innovation. LifeSaver from Nigeria under World Citizenship.South Africa from South Africa under the Innovation category. WiseTeam from Tunisia under World Citizenship. Code 8 from Uganda under World Citizenship category and Kernel from West & Central Africa under the World Citizenship category.
Kenya’s Team PI Craft have a solution dubbed Protégé developed by Collin Omwenga, Paul Mutie and Somboriot Kipchallat students from Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.
Protege interconnects children’s homes with well-wishers and charity organizations for secure donations like money, voluntary service time, clothes and food. With Protege users can search children homes from around the world, see what the homes need, sent in their donation request and recieve updates on the projects they support or donate to. The team hopes to bring home this year Imagine Cup Challenge prize of $1,000,000.
The competitions finals are being held at St. Petersburg, Russia look at team’s innovative ideas, mastery of integrated technology and development of a strong business plan. Imagine Cup is part of the Microsoft YouthSpark initiative to create opportunities for millions of young people around the world.
According to Microsoft, more students competed in Imagine Cup worldwide this year than ever before, with a more than 70 percent increase from 2012. Imagine Cup require students to complete applications built on Microsoft technology aligned to three key focus areas: Innovation, World Citizenship and Games.