Microsoft India recently concluded the 16th edition of Imagine Cup and announced RealVol, DrugSafe, and Practikality as winners of the India Chapter. These student teams will represent India at the Imagine Cup finals in USA and compete for $100,000 prize money and a mentoring session with Satya Nadella. The premier competition allows student developers to use their creativity and passion to solve real world problems and turn their ideas into reality. This year’s India leg also underscored the rising interest for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and related technologies such as Cognitive Services and Chatbots among Indian students. 60 percent of the entries received from the participants were solutions powered by AI.
Comments Anant Maheshwari, president, Microsoft India, “Imagine Cup is a true reflection of how the youth with their entrepreneurial capabilities are taking a lead in building solutions for real life challenges. Microsoft is helping them with right tools and skill sets to be able to pursue their passion of becoming successful entrepreneurs. I am truly inspired by these young innovators and their entrepreneurial spirit. The use of Artificial Intelligence capabilities in some of these solutions is remarkable and I look forward to seeing them implemented in real life scenarios soon.”

Imagine Cup 2018 – India Winners

Grand Winner: RealVol (IIIT Delhi)

RealVol features a virtual reality based immersive view inside a CT or MRI scan, where a user can navigate the 3D scan of a human body.

First runner-up: DrugSafe (RV College of Engineering, Bengaluru)

DrugSafe was ideated to mitigate counterfeit medicine growth in the market. Using multi-layered checks in the DrugSafe app, a consumer can verify validity of a drug.

Second runner-up: Practikality (Amity International School, Gurugram)

Practikality is a machine learning based assistant to help the differently abled communicate efficiently. The app serves as voice for the mute, listening tool for the deaf and vision for the blind.

Winners in special categories

1. Best project on Diversity: Mobile Assistive Kit for visually impaired

2. Best project on Accessibility: Practikality

This year’s Imagine Cup also witnessed an increased participation from girl students, elevating the diversity ratio of the contest to 64 percent. There was also a 29 percent increase in accessibility related projects. With an outreach to over key 50 campuses from over 10 states including Rajasthan, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, etc Imagine Camps have impacted over 10,000 students across India.

Some of the other projects with AI capabilities that contested the Imagine Cup are as follows:

– Imagine Better: The project initiated by the students of GIMT- Guwahati; Techno India- Kolkata and JSSATE- Noida uses extensive Machine Learning to help users in identifying Fake News.

– Inspirata: Developed by the students of IIT Delhi, it is a bot that helps people fight depression by automatically identifying depressed and sad people on social media and engaging them with encouraging conversations.

– Saarthi: The real time translation technology by the students of Manipal Institute of Technology uses gesture recognition and machine learning to convert sign language to spoken language. Saarthi solves communication challenges for deaf and mute people.

– FunSchool is a mobile Augmented Reality application that aims at making learning a fun and interactive experience for kids. The application contains a collection of lessons that have been gamified using technologies like Mobile Augmented Reality, Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence.

– BIVIDA: Built by the students of Manav Rachna International University, it is a Blockchain and AI powered Open Data Platform for tenders that opens up public contracting through disclosure, data, and engagement providing transparency, accountability and improved efficiency in the process of tendering and procurement.

Over the past ten years, more than 1.65 million students from more than 190 countries have participated in the Imagine Cup. From the APAC region nearly 380,000 students have competed in the Imagine Cup in the past five years.

Redmond, Washington (US) headquartered Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is an American multinational technology company that enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge.