Winners of Microsoft Imagine Cup 2014 In The Kenyan Competition Announced

Winners of Microsoft Imagine Cup 2014 In The Kenyan Competition Announced

Team Africon came in 1^st place in the just concluded National and Online Finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2014 in Kenya. Team Africon is composed of young innovators Alex Kinuthia, Peter Ombwa, Kevin Gitau and Solomon Jenjere from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. This team took the 1^st position with their innovative mobile app dubbed Life Buddy.

Life Buddy app is meant to help in emergency blood donation services. By easily linking blood recipients to their respective potential blood donors who match their blood group: the app works by enabling anyone in need of a blood donation urgently to upload his/her request quickly to the app. Then the app will automatically send out notifications to only compatible blood group donors who are located within a 20Kms (12.4 miles) radius of the recipient’s location. The willing donor will then be able to get full details about which hospital to go to and the contact number of the recipient in need.

Life Buddy has demonstrated capability of saving lives by ensuring compatible blood donors and blood recipients are able to find each other easily and fast which could come in pretty handy in an emergency situation. Other runners up to the 1^st position for the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2014 are as follows:

• 2^nd Place: BiDE Code came in at 2^nd place with for developing the TeachSpace app. An app that will connect teachers with their students. By enabling easy teaching, making content available and integrating deep sharing between students and their teachers.
• 3^rd Place: Team Momentum Core came in at 3^rd place with their gaming invention dubbed, Refugee Movement. With this game, users can petition the African Union in passing legislations that can help the Dadaab refugees or sign various pledges for their presidents to support initiatives to help refugees in Dadaab.

Paul Roy Owino, Developer and Platform Lead Microsoft East and Southern Africa had this to say about the concluded innovation competition: “Each team that competed is deserving of the highest recognition for the creativity and imagination applied to some of the world’s biggest challenges. We’re proud to honor these young students who we believe truly exemplify the spirit of the Imagine Cup competition, and we will be cheering Team Africon on as they compete on the world stage.”

The competition was part of Microsoft’s YouthSpark initiative: an initiative geared to provide young innovators, developers and entrepreneurs the platform to develop their ideas, come up with products and draw up feasible business plans that will catapult their products higher into the market. Every 1^st place winner in this year’s Imagine Cup competition at the National and Online Finals will proceed to the next level challenge at the World Semifinals which was launched on May 1^st, 2014.

Kenya’s Team Africon who came in at 1^st place and the 2^nd place winners BiDE Code will be competing against other developers from other countries in global judging round of the World Semifinals set to be held in August 2014 in Seattle, USA. In the mean time, all the World Semifinalist team will be awarded a prize which includes Imagine Cup’s Visual Studio Online Boost. From which 9 teams will chosen and awarded a cash prize of $1,000 each for using the Visual Studio Online cloud-based power to plan, collaborate and implement their various products.