IIT team dazzles the world at Imagine Cup 2013
View(s):For the first time in the decade long history of Imagine Cup hosted and sponsored by Microsoft, a Sri Lankan team comprising students attached to the Informatics Institute of Technology (IIT) emerged victorious and was awarded the Samsung Digital Native Award.
The IIT team known as Firebird which comprised team members Stefan Udumalagala, Mohamed Shehan Bishrul Kafi, Amal Gunatilake and Kishore Kumar received this award at St. Petersburg, Russia at the Imagine Cup 2013 Worldwide Finals held on 11 July.
The Samsung Digital Native Award honors Imagine Cup Worldwide Finalist teams whose projects showcase fresh thinking, digital savvy, and a global perspective every year. The winning team received a cash prize of USD$10,000.
The IIT team received this award for ours innovative product identified as i-Chum which helps the visually impaired to lead a normal and productive life. It provides augmented sensory aids: allowing the visually impaired to experience and comfortably interact with both the physical and virtual environments and animate and inanimate objects within these environments without compromising their safety. The i-Chum uses a novel approach to package a combination of sensory techniques together by connecting the device into a smartphone or tablet PC with Windows 8 OS user that has the ability to perform tasks such as obstacle avoidance and navigation,object identification and generic reading and writing.
Team Firebird issuing a statement said that they researched the gaps in the current society where technology could actually be a help to improve the life style of people.
“Through the research we found out that even though there are products which have been introduced into the market already, still those products do not cater to a broad range of capabilities. Our team had a brainstorm session and we put our thoughts and knowledge together to come up with the perfect product which does cater to a wide range of capabilities for the visually impaired people,” the team said.
Adding to the recent achievement of the students, Dean of IIT Associate Prof. Alfred Perera stated that during the 23 year history of IIT, the institute has strived towards achieving excellence and this could be seen by the long list of alumni who are currently serving in top positions both locally and abroad.
“We have always believed in harnessing innovation and out of the box thinking in our students and we will continue to do so. This award is a strong indicator and endorsement of the innovative foundation that we provide our students with our well-tailored degree programmes, that have throughout the years succeeded in stimulating creative thinking in resolving much needed day to day issues as well as developing new trends in a fast changing IT landscape”.
““With our product – i-Chum, the visually impaired will no longer be impaired.They could be just as independent and normal as their next door neighbour who has perfect vision,” the statement said.
The Microsoft Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition that provides those in the field of IT a fantastic opportunity to break new ground, solve tough problems facing the world today, and maybe even turn their ideas into a business, learn new technological skills and win cash, grants and prizes. Over the past ten years, more than 1.65 million students from more than 190 countries have participated in the Imagine Cup.
This year eighty-seven teams of students from sixty-nine countries met at St.Petersburg, Russia, for the Imagine Cup 2013 Worldwide Finals, where they competed in six categories for more than one million dollars in cash and prizes. The judges consisted of a team of talented professionals, academics, and journalists from all over the world.
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