Innovation battle begins

Microsoft Imagine Cup 2012
Innovation battle begins
Microsoft Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition which has been running for almost a decade. Since its inception in 2003, the Imagine Cup
has grown to be a truly global competition focused on finding solutions to real world problems.
This year too, Microsoft is going to organise the Imagine Cup 2012 with the theme “Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems”. The competitors
have to develop their projects based on the theme.
In that line, Microsoft Bangladesh has organised national Imagine Cup 2012. Over 300 teams of students across the country applied for the contest, 14 got chances to
participate and finally 10 teams have been selected for the final round. The winner of this competition will go to Sydney, Australia in July to compete in Imagine Cup
2012 Worldwide finals.
The teams showcased their project at a event held at DRIK ICT premises in the capital on April 28.
Let’s take a look at the 10 teams and their projects.
Angry Coders from University of Dhaka
The Angry Coders have developed Smart agro application.
The team said because of climate change thousand acres of cultivable land are decaying every year in Bangladesh which has intensified poverty problem. Only floating
cultivation with water-hyacinth bed in these water spaces can be substituted for meeting hunger and poverty for more than 5 million people. But different diseases &
flooding deter this process of cultivation from implementation. To provide solution to these two major problems, they are developing this mobile adapted software which
is able to detect diseases through image processing of the crops and vegetables and forecast flooding.
Their app can be used on windows phone, tablet or laptop.
AUST 4BIT from Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology
The team has come up with their innovation Helping System for Physically Disabled People Using Voice Processing to help the disabled people.
Their software system will act only by the voice of a disabled person assigned to it. The software absolutely requires no physical interaction. It takes only voice
input and acts based on the voice command. The software can turn on light, fan, doors without any physical interaction, it also helps call people through cell phone
without the touching the keypad. It includes a voice guided robot which will help handicapped person fetching things.
Dexterous” from BRAC University
With Save Energy, Save the Green they are trying to solve the mass power loss in the renewable energy sector by using an intelligent switching system, which will
reduce the use of fossil fuel and thus it will help the environment to keep it greener. Additionally, it will reduce the misuse of electricity. For example, they said,
if a person forgets to turn off AC or fan at his office and remembers after coming back home, he will be able to switch off the AC or fan through his Windows mobile
phone. Power of a source will be made always maximum.
Their app will use an internet based software system, which will automatically detect the present condition of every renewable energy based power source and will
maximise the power harvesting from every source.
Engine from BUET, AIUB and North South University
With Annapurna, the team developed a solution which will provide a cultivation guideline to the farmers as well as cultivators. They will collect information related
to farming provide an intelligent user-centric and personalised instruction to enhance better agricultural practice.
IIT Phoenix from Institute of IT, University of Dhaka
They have developed an online donation system- Better Together where someone economically solvent can help a person by providing financial aids. With their system
anyone across the globe can post his or her requests, which after proper validation will be visible on the website. And interested individuals will be able to donate
money by means of e-transaction.
Leprechaun from North South University
With Project Beetle the team is trying to solve crop production disaster.
The team have developed a windows phone application to detect crop disease. The application will capture crop image and analyse them to get unusual patterns. The
patterns will be matched with a huge cloud database which will be constantly updated by plant disease specialists from all around the world. After detecting the
disease accurately, the application will provide detailed information about the crop disease and its cure. The application will also have offline database and
localised support so that farmers on the remotest part of the world can get help.
Team MOR from BRAC University
The team has come up with the idea of Eye controlled cursor which will let you control the cursor movements by your pupil. They came up with this idea for those who
(especially people with impairments) cannot work with other input devices- mouse, keyboard or touch panel.
The team found no efficient and cheap way to make such kind of software and system. With Eye controlled cursor, MOR is trying to make it work efficiently and cheaply
using webcam and some computer vision algorithms where our pupil will act like a mouse.
Team Zero Hour from Patuakhali Science and Technology University
The team has come up with the idea of Pocket Switch. The idea is to develop a system that lets control devices from distant places.
Team “uiU_DyNaMiC” from United International University
Their project is Hathe Khori, an education software. Their target is to design such an intelligent and responsive educational software application, in windows mobile,
web and desktop platforms, that will help kids to learn recognising and writing alphabets of native language. With this application kids can learn alphabets by
listening, writing, and speaking. This application will provide a scribble pad to a kid and display one alphabet after another one. Kids will learn to write that
alphabet on scribble pad. The application will determine whether kids’ attempted writing is correct or wrong. This way the application will perform the role of a
virtual tutor.
Team “UIU-Strugglers” from United International University
With the project UIU Bangla OCR, the team has developed a Bangla Optical Character Recogniser (OCR). They said although Bangla is a rich language and a lot of
documents are there in this language, no OCR is available commercially. They developed a robust efficient Bangla OCR in windows platform for printed characters. The
main goal is to transform the input data (pattern of data), such as text written document on manuscript, text typed on document or online writing into a digital
format.
Five teams will present their projects before a panel of experts today and five teams will present tomorrow.
The judges will be looking for video presentations that provide background and context to the projects, explanation on why the problem is an interesting one, highlight
on how the system works including an insightful demonstration. Teams will also be evaluated on their ability to take questions from the panel.
Name of the winning team along with 1st and 2nd runner-up teams will be announced on May 9.
GPIT is sponsoring the tickets for worldwide finals in Sydney and TSS is sponsoring Doel laptops for the winning team members.
Each member of the 1st and 2nd runner-up teams will get Doel laptops.
Team Rapture, Last year’s National champion team, won the “People’s Choice Award” at the Imagine Cup worldwide finals in USA.

-With The Daily Star input