After a tough competition with eight other teams from Nigerian Universities via presentations of innovative solutions, students from the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho have emerged the winners of the 2014 Microsoft Nigeria Imagine Cup and are well on their way to representing Nigeria at the World semi-finals.
National winners, Adefioye Temidayo, Faleye Benjamin, Oyebisi Jemil and Ibraheem Bello, Team High Rise, are going to compete at the semi-finals and if they win, they will participate in the Imagine Cup World Finals which will take place in Seattle in July 2014. Expectations and anxiety are seemingly high, but only two African countries will represent the continent at the world stage this summer.
The team emerged winner in the category of World Citizenship, with their solution, “Catara”, designed to significantly reduce the rate at which cataract causes total blindness. Team High Rise will be following in the footsteps of Team Code 8, who showed how the power of technology can take on Africa’s and the world’s toughest problems.
The team won $12, 000 in addition to training and mentorship to develop their application. In 2nd place, was Team S-Eagle from The Federal University of Akure (FUTA), with their solution “Enchanter”, which created virtual business cards that can be shared via Near Field Communication (NFC); and 3rd place, Team ABU from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, with their solution Mayday, an emergency alert and response application.
Imagine Cup is a student software competition centered on the use of imagination, creativity and technology to help solve some of the world’s toughest problems. The competition is directly aligned with Microsoft’s YouthSpark initiative, a way for young entrepreneurs, innovators and developers to have the chance to develop an idea, create a product, and set a clear business plan that will deliver their product to the target market; and the Microsoft 4AfrikaInitiative, that was launched last year to drive access to technology, innovation and world-class skills.
