Ten student teams from across nine European, Middle Eastern, and African countries pitched their tech solutions at the 2020 Imagine Cup EMEA Regional Final this week. Each team brought a project ignited from their passion and developed with purpose, impact, and Microsoft Azure. The event concluded with the selection of the top two EMEA teams moving forward to this year’s World Championship at Microsoft Build - congratulations Team The Knights from Kenya and RedWalls from Tunisia for taking home the winning spots!
The Imagine Cup aims to inspire students to use their imagination and passion for technology to create innovative and inclusive projects that tackle some of the world’s biggest social, environmental, and health challenges. Taking on this challenge, The Knights created an automated weeding bot to help farmers eliminate the need for herbicides in their crops, and Team RedWalls created a mobile application designed for Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers to help evaluate and train the user's memory.
Out of hundreds of EMEA submissions, the ten regional finalist teams virtually showcased their innovations to a panel of judges to compete for prizes totaling USD20,000, Azure credits, and two spots in the 2020 World Championship. With ideas encompassing solutions in education, wildlife conservation, cancer detection, emotional wellbeing, accessibility, and more, judges had a difficult task selecting which teams to advance.
Congratulations to all our winners and thank you to everyone who participated in bringing your passion to life! We'd also like to give a special thank you to our competition judges for their expertise and time.
Meet the winning teams:
World Finalist – Team The Knights, Kenya
Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology
The Knights created an automated robot using artificial intelligence to identify and remove weeds from rows of crops. Their solution uses cameras as sensors to gather input from the environment and eliminate farmers' need to use environmentally harmful pesticides in their weeding.
Prizes: USD8,000, Azure credits, a spot in the 2020 Imagine Cup World Championship
World Finalist – Team RedWalls, Tunisia
National Institute of Applied Science and Technology
Team RedWalls created I-Remember, a two-part mobile application designed for the wellbeing of both Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers. The patient interface includes task reminders, live facial recognition, labelled photos, emergency location and call assistance, as well as memory games to help evaluate and train the user's memory. The caregiver interface provides the same, but with supervisor features.
Prizes: USD8,000, Azure credits, a spot in the 2020 Imagine Cup World Championship
Runner-up - Team Wild Eye, Kenya
Dedan Kimathi University of Technology
The team's project, Wild Eye_KE, brings technology to the wild by monitoring and tracking animal activities. Wild Eye_KE will notify authorities if animals move away from the wildlife protected areas in an effort to reduce poaching and human interaction.
Prizes: USD2,500 and Azure credits
Runner-up - Team Allez, Ukraine
Ukrainian Catholic University
Allez supports personal development through sports experience. The team created a mobile app which collects athlete analytics and improves communication with the coach. The aim is to maximize the performance of an athlete and help coaches grow individuals mentally ready to fight obstacles.
Prizes: USD2,500 and Azure credits
Runner-up - Team Vhysio, United Kingdom
Durham University
Vhysio is a web application utilizing tensorflow.js, a cutting-edge browser-based Machine Learning library, to enable accessible physiotherapy for the visually impaired. Vhysio provides real-time feedback by speaking through exercises and responding to the user's posture.
Prizes: USD2,500 and Azure credits
Follow the journeys of our winning teams on Instagram and Twitter as they prepare for the 2020 World Championship! They’ll be competing against Asia Regional winners, team Syrinx and team Hollo, and the winners of the upcoming Americas Regional Final.
