Sri Lankan team selected to compete at Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals

Microsoft yesterday announced that Team Titans from Sri Lanka had been selected as one of seven teams to represent South Asia at the Microsoft Imagine Cup World Finals in July this year. The selection was made at the inaugural Imagine Cup Southeast Asia Finals held in Manila, Philippines.

Addressing the issue of treating asthma in children, Team Titans—Dimuthu Kariyawasam, Buddhi Ayesha and Keet Sugathadasa from the University of Moratuwa—developed “INHALO”, a product aimed at motivating children to carry out proper breathing practices and continued inhaler-use. The product comes with a Headset that identifies breathing patterns of the user, and a Mobile Game, that motivates children to use the inhaler and get healthier as they play. The game also supports single player and multi-player features. 

Conferred the title of “Worldwide Finalist” for their innovation, Team Titans will take their journey to the next level at the Imagine Cup World Finals. Held in Seattle this July, the World Finals will gather more than 50 students teams from all over the world, all vying for the top prize of USD $100,000, mentorship opportunities with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, as well as Azure grants and credits to bring their winning solution to the market.

The team and others pitched their ideas and projects in an intense full-day event held on 24 April 2017 to a panel of distinguished judges. The judging panel included Dr. AKP Mochtan, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for Community and Corporate Affairs; Dr. Jennifer Tang, Founder, STAT Innovations and Creator of Eyenaemia; Lars Jeppesen, Co-Founder Tech One Global; Shuo-Hung Chen, Founder, HeX; Nigel Parker, Technical Evangelist Lead Microsoft Asia Pacific, and Joey Limjap, Vice President and Head, PLDT Enterprise Core Business Research and Development.

In all, Microsoft will sponsor a total of seven teams to bear the standard for Southeast Asia at the World Finals, putting the breadth and depth of creativity and innovation in Southeast Asia youth on full display in front of the world.

Co-organised with ASEAN as part of the latter’s 50th Anniversary Summit, the Imagine Cup Southeast Asia Regional Finals saw 10 bright student teams competing to be the best in the region. These teams were chosen from local finals held in 13 countries across the region, which included Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

“For the past 15 years, Imagine Cup has been a platform to help students turn their dreams into reality,” said Dave Miller, Developer Experience Lead, Microsoft Asia Pacific. “This year’s regional finalists brought great ideas to the stage, and we see a lot of potential in these projects in solving some of the biggest challenges today across the region. Imagine Cup is just the beginning for many of these budding innovators and entrepreneurs, and we are excited to be part of their journey.” 

Held annually since 2003, the Microsoft Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition, known affectionately by participants as the “Olympics of student technology competitions”. For many of the teams, their journey to the Imagine Cup World Finals started way back in 2016, when students began forming their teams at schools across the globe to compete on a local level, with the aim of qualifying for the world finals.

Microsoft’s association with ASEAN is a strong testament to the company’s commitment to develop and unleash the potential of young talents in South East Asia, as well as to foster the growth of the next generation to help them achieve more in the digital age.

For more information about Imagine Cup, please visit https://www.imaginecup.com/.