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With the completion of the last Regional Final this week in Seattle, Washington, the 2019 Imagine Cup competition is approaching its biggest stage yet - the World Championship at Microsoft Build. Team EasyGlucose from the United States took home the first-place title at the Americas Regional Final for their project, a low-cost and non-invasive blood glucose level monitor for diabetics which utilizes Azure deep learning and smartphone-based ophthalmic imaging.
Microsoft’s Imagine Cup aims to empower student developers around the globe to build for the future and develop the next great technology solutions. “Each year, I’m more and more impressed by the solutions created by Imagine Cup students. The future is in their hands, and I’m confident they’re up for the challenge!” says Charlotte Yarkoni, Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Commerce and Ecosystems.
Through the competition, students are given the opportunity to travel, receive one on one mentorship, develop business and technology skills, and network with like-minded peers to bring their ideas to life. Out of hundreds of Americas submissions, 12 finalists were selected to travel to Seattle and compete at the Regional Final, hosted at the Microsoft Reactor. The first-place prize up for grabs? USD15,000 and the last spot in the 2019 World Championship.
Finalist projects ranged from tackling issues in healthcare, industry, accessibility and education, among others, and utilized a variety of Microsoft technologies including Azure Machine Learning, Mixed Reality, and IoT. Over three days of competition, teams participated in an Entrepreneur Day and a Social Good Hack with Microsoft Student Partners to learn how to perfect their pitches and collaborate to develop solutions for global issues. The Regional Final culminated with each team giving a live demo of their projects to a panel of judges, and the top three were chosen.
The competition doesn’t end here! Team EasyGlucose will compete against teams Finderr from the UK and Caeli from India at the 2019 World Championship at Microsoft Build. The winning team will go home with USD100,000 and a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Save the date for May 6 at 8:00am PT to watch the show live!
Meet the top 3 Americas teams:
1st place - EasyGlucose, USA
EasyGlucose is a low-cost, non-invasive, and painless blood glucose level monitor for diabetics which uses deep learning and smartphone-based ophthalmic imaging.
Prize: USD15,000 and a spot in the Imagine Cup World Championship
2nd place - SpeakEasy, United States
SpeakEasy is an intelligent and personalized public speaking trainer that takes advantage of speech and gesture recognition to provide detailed feedback on each user’s presentation skills.
Prize: USD5,000
3rd place - Smart Eyes, Canada
Smart Eyes is a mobile application that uses video processing and object detection to inform visually impaired or legally blind users of their surroundings using audio feedback.
Prize: USD1,000
Congratulations to all our Americas Regional Finalists for their incredible projects and hard work. All teams now have the chance to attend Microsoft Build and experience a professional developer conference to learn about new technologies, gain hands-on experience, and level-up their development skills including access to the Student Zone with labs, workshops, a career center, and more! Follow the action on Twitter and Instagram for live updates on all student activities, including the World Championship on May 6.