Microsoft announced the winners of the 16th annual Imagine Cup, the world’s premier student technology competition where students from around the globe team up to solve some of the world’s biggest problems through technology.

Representing Malaysia is Team PINE which consists of 3 students from Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM).

Team PINE managed to qualify for semi-finals through their handheld sensing device that can help pineapple farmers efficiently and effectively evaluate optimal levels of ripeness prior to harvest, in a non-intrusive manner and was listed as finalists in the Big Data category.

Their invention managed to place them in the top 15 out 49 teams that qualified for the world finals.

This year, the Imagine World Cup witnessed Team smartARM from Canada triumph as winner with their functional robotic prosthetic hand that is powered by Microsoft Azure.

The hand is equipped with a camera embedded in the palm to help recognize objects and calculate the most appropriate grip for the object.

The arm is able to become more functional as it learns and captures more data with the help of technologies such as machine learning and computer vision.

The team was awarded with US$85,000 cash prize, Azure grant worth US$50,000, and an immensely valuable mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Coming in second place was Team iCry2Talk from Greece with their low-cost, non-invasive project that enables parents to decipher the message behind a baby’s crying in real-time.

Team Mediated Ear from Japan secured the third place with their software for hearing-impaired individuals to focus on a specific speaker among a multitude of conversations.

Microsoft also added three special awards that represent the current state of digital transformation which are Artificial Intelligence award, Big Data award and Mixed Reality award in which each award winners received US$15,000 in cash prize and US$30,000 Azure grant to help further their endeavors.

Team Sochware from Nepal won the Artificial Intelligence award with their platform designed to help farmers identify plant diseases, suggest mitigation strategies, connect with experts, and get updated with recent agriculture findings to ensure more successful harvests.

With their multi-layered holistic drug validation system using technologies built upon big data to inform users if specific drugs are safe for use, Team DrugSafe from India was announced as winner for Big Data award.

Team Pengram from the United States was awarded with the Mixed Reality award with their AR/VR platform designed for engineers to be “teleported” into a workspace when required.

This year, 49 teams from 33 countries, were selected to travel to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, to showcase their inventiveness in leveraging the power of modern technology to solve some of the world’s pressing challenges.

A total of 8 teams from the Asia Pacific region made it to the semi-finals, underscoring one of the largest representations from a single region at the competition.

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