Ukrainian students “voiced” the gestures
The Ukrainian winners of the Imagine Cup contest are going to present a phone for people with impaired hearing and speaking in Australia
The final stage of the international IT contest for students Microsoft Imagine Cup took place in Kyiv. Eight teams trying to solve the global problems with the help of the newest technologies participated in it. The first prize was won by the team quadSquad, a group of students from Donetsk branch of the Computer Academy “Krok” (nomination “Software Design”). They created a project that was designed to identify and voice the sign language with the help of a cell phone. The winners presented their know-how – a glove with sensors that transmit the information to a mobile device with Windows Phone of Windows 8 platform. The received data is converted into a sound with the help of a device that was designed by the team. Now quadSquad is going to represent Ukraine in Australia at the world finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup contest.
“The communication of deaf people is limited, and there are 40 million of these people in the world. This is equal to the population of a fairly big country,” says the leader of the winners team Anton Stepanov. “Our team is convinced that this project can unite the modern microelectronics technologies and the power of Windows operating systems to make life easier not only for people with impaired hearing and speaking abilities, but for all of us.”
According to him, 40 million of deaf people are their potential clients, and there are about 60,000 of them in Ukraine. Overall 40,000 dollars is the sum required to establish the production of gloves. At first, one such glove would cost approximately 400 dollars, but when the mass production is organized, the price would drop to about 20 dollars. Meanwhile, the team plans to perfect their technology: if at present the glove recognizes the movements of the base of the hand only, the final version will read the movements of the whole hand.
Imagine Cup was held in Ukraine seven times now, while on the international level the contest was held 10 times. This year, 29 teams from 19 educational establishments from 6 cities participated in the national stage of the the contest in the most prestigious nomination “Software Design.” Three of them were admitted to the Imagine Cup superfinals in Ukraine: quadSquad team (Donetsk, Computer Academy “Krok”) with their project “EnableTalk” that helps people with impaired hearing and speaking abilities communicate with the help of sound; CyberHeads team (Odesa, Computer Academy “Krok”) with their project “Newgery” – a global online library that works like Wikipedia – users can add books themselves; and DarkSpark team (Kharkiv National University of Radioelectronics) with their project “ChildLight” – a play method based on Xbox console and Kinect controller designed for the rehabilitation of children with musculoskeletal disorders. Members of teams that won second, third, and fourth prizes received Nokia Lumia 800, a smartphone that was just introduced to Ukrainian market. And the superfinals winners will be able to prepare their next projects on laptops presented by Dell company in Ukraine, the technology sponsor of the national finals of the Imagine Cup. By the way, M.D. team from the National Mining University was lucky enough to get a chance to try out their talents in large business: special partner of the contest, Smart-holding, invited Dnipropetrovsk students who developed the eMedicine project to undergo an internship helping family doctors.
“Technologies can become a driving force for the opportunities aimed far beyond the limits of their everyday use at work as well as within the social environment in order to solve the most complicated global issues. Bright young people are always the ones to come up with innovative ideas. Imagine Cup is more than an IT contest, it is a consolidation of business projects that were created to help people. Our goal is not the mere contest, but the promotion of development of innovative social and business projects in Ukraine,” said Dmytro Shymkiv, director general of Microsoft Ukraine.
The winner was chosen by the expert jury in the field of information technologies and directors of business incubators GrowthUp and EastLabs. Famous Ukrainians who care about the future of the society and the ideas of the youth also joined in: TV host, producer, and showman Ihor Kondratiuk and musician, architect, manager and founder of the Ya Gallery art center Pavlo Hudimov. The latter was pleasantly surprised by the virtual library project which was designed by a team from Odesa. “This is an urgent matter today, since the book is going through a kind of reincarnation in a digital format, and this gives art an opportunity to be available for everyone,” Hudimov says.
Now the contest winners are getting ready for the new competition: the most large-scale world student contest Imagine Cup is going to be held in Sydney, Australia, from July 6 to July 10. The participants in the “Software Design” nomination are going to compete for the main prize of 25,000 dollars. Besides, the finalists will be able to apply for social grants from the Microsoft Corporation to put their ideas into life. The company assigned three million dollars for this grant program for three years. QuadSquad team from Donetsk is not the only possible Ukrainian representative at the world stage: right now other Ukrainian teams are competing in a global online contest in other nominations. Last year Ukraine was represented by the two teams: DashPoint (Odesa) and DigitalDream (Kharkiv) at the world finals in New York City (the US).
The Day’s FACT FILE
Imagine Cup is an international student projects contest in the field of information technology, which has been held by the Microsoft Corporation for students of high schools and universities for 10 years in a row. More than 350,000 students from 183 countries participated in the contest in 2011. The winners of the national stages, 424 participants (70 countries with 128 projects) created the most interesting project within the framework of the general theme and contended in the world finals in New York. Any student of age 16 and higher who gathered a team and completed the registration on the official website of the contest can become the participant of the international contest organized by Microsoft. The main condition of the participation is an interesting idea, a perspective project which is submitted to the jury by a team. The participants are to demonstrate their talents and skills within a theme that is chosen every year.
