Microsoft’s annual global student technology competition, Imagine Cup has revealed the entries selected to participate in the World semi-finals round taking place on 24 and 25 March 2021.
The competition encourages students to build something that matters to them, make a difference in their communities and innovate for impact
It has also selected three teams from Kenya to represent the country and advance in the competition.
The teams developed solutions to tackle health, lifestyle, and educational issues, and demonstrated great understanding by creating solutions that directly spoke to socio-economic issues within their own surroundings and globally.
One of them is called Cafrilearn, which created a project called Makini that consists of a mobile application that supports devices and allows for the facilitation of digital learning at affordable cost to low-income families and marginalized communities.
INTELLIVOLT product monitors over voltage, under voltage and power outages. Alerts from Azure applications in the form of SMS and emails are sent to relevant authorities in real time.
Lastly, team REWEBA (Remote Well Baby) created a solution that serves as an early warning system – digitally monitoring growth parameters of babies and sending them to doctors remotely for timely intervention. It combines a variety of technologies to provide innovative functionalities for infant screening.
The winning group will be awarded the Imagine Cup trophy along with USD 75,000 and a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella.
2021’s competition also includes category prizes totalling USD 60,000, plus Microsoft Learn Challenge monthly giveaways.
“In the current global climate, it’s become crucially importance to, through platforms such as Imagine Cup, create positive change using new tools and resources. This is the main reason why with this year’s competition, we wanted to empower students to reimagine solutions and remove the physical and geographical borders – creating a global stage. The four categories for this year’s competition have been introduced to recognize and highlight more of the issues students are passionate about,” says Kendi Nderitu, Country Manager, Microsoft Kenya.
