#msftimagine

After months of hard work and perseverance, the time has finally arrived for the annual Imagine Cup World Finals in Seattle! Out of 40,000 student registrations, 49 university teams from 33 countries were specially selected to gather in Seattle for three days of intense competition to emerge as the champions and receive an exclusive opportunity for a one-to-one session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Here’s a quick look at the Imagine Cup World Finals held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seattle on 25 July 2018:

The Imagine Cup 2018 World Finalists comprise of the following top three university teams:

iCry2Talk, Greece, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Mediated Ear, Japan, University of Tokyo.

smartARM, Canada, University of Ontario Institute of Technology.

Our distinguished panel of judges comprise of Peggy Johnson (Executive Vice President of Business Development at Microsoft), CEO of Glitch, Anil Dash, and Co-founder and COO of Bitnami, Erica Brescia.

After a quick round of introductions, each team took their turns on stage to present their innovative solutions in a three-minute pitch followed by questions from the judges.

1st Team: smartARM, Canada, University of Ontario Institute of Technology.

“smartARM is a robotic hand prosthetic, created using Microsoft Azure Computer Vision, Machine Learning and Cloud Storage. The robotic hand uses a camera embedded in its palm to recognize objects and calculate the most appropriate grip for an object. Using Machine Learning, the more the model is used the more accurate it becomes.“

2nd Team: iCry2Talk, Greece, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

“iCry2Talk proposes a low-cost and non-invasive intelligent interface between the infant and the parent that translates in real time the baby’s cry and associates it with a specific physiological and psychological state, depicting the result in a text, image and voice message.“

3rd Team: Mediated Ear, Japan, University of Tokyo.

“Mediated Ear is software for hearing-impaired individuals to focus on a specific speaker among a multitude of conversations. Mediated Ear can relay specific sounds in audio waveforms through deep learning.“

Before the results were announced, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Olympic Gold Medalist Chloe Kim shared their personal experiences and stories on innovating and taking on daily challenges to achieve new heights in our future endeavors.

After an intense round of judging, smartARM was crowned as the champions of Imagine Cup 2018 World Finals with iCry2Talk as first runner-up and Mediated Ear as second runner-up.

A big thank you to all of the university teams and event organizers who contributed to the success of Imagine Cup 2018 World Finals!

Special thanks to Team 7x from Singapore who gave me an opportunity to be part of their amazing adventure in Imagine Cup. 

(Photo Credits: Official Photographer for  Imagine Cup 2018 World Finals)