Microsoft announces Imagine Cup 2006 winners

Microsoft Corp. last week announced the winners of Imagine Cup 2006, after a week of intense competition among finalists chosen from a pool of more than 65,000 students from over 100 countries.

Giorgio Sardo, Massimo Paternoster, Silvia Perrone and Andrea Sossich from Team Even .ctor from Polytechnic of Turin, Italy, celebrated their first-place finish in the worldwide Software Design Invitational and were awarded a $25,000 cash prize. The Imagine Cup, Microsoft’s premier competition for technology students, provides a forum to encourage creative and technological innovations among university students worldwide. “These projects demonstrate the power of software to address real-world problems, and I’m so impressed by the high levels of technical innovation that these students achieved in their work,” said Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, who met several student teams in Redmond, Wash., earlier this year as they prepared for the India competition.

The 42 software design finalist teams created a software application using Microsoft® technology and Microsoft .NET Web Services based on the Imagine Cup competition theme: “Imagine a world where technology enables us to live healthier lives.”

Team “Arunalu”, comprising Yasith Perera, Shanaka Perera, Prasad Sampath Wickramasinghe and M.A. Chathurika Sandarenu, a group of innovative youngsters from the faculty of Information Technology at the University of Moratuwa, represented Sri Lanka at the global championships in India.

A total of 181 students from 72 teams representing 42 countries were ultimately selected to participate in worldwide Imagine Cup finals in six categories: Software Design, Algorithm, IT, Short Film, Interface Design and Project Hoshimi (Programming Battle). The student teams were asked to undertake a series of challenges relating to multimedia or technology depending on the invitational.