Winning team chosen to represent Egypt in the Imagine Cup International

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Fourteen teams of university students will be competing in the final rounds. The teams are from Cairo, Mansoura and Helwan local universities, in addition to ITI Institute and the American University in Cairo.

During the final qualifiers, the teams will each get twenty minutes to present their software design to the panel that will choose the final winning team.

The Imagine Cup Contest gives young people the chance to compete with their creative ideas in an international atmosphere, as well as giving them the chance to get in contact with important persons worldwide and make strong friendships with youth all over the world.

The main aim behind the contest is to participate in the attempts to improve human lives in general by using technology in creating solutions to the world's biggest problems. Last year's contest accommodated 394 Egyptian students, and one team of four students was qualified to the final contest that was held in India.

Karim Ramada, General Manager Microsoft Egypt, said Imagine Cup is the first technical contest worldwide that is dedicated to students, and it comes in line with the corporation's mission to support young talents and discover the coming generations of technology experts, especially that the contest offers exceptional ideas the chance to be implemented in real life.

Moreover, Ramadan added that the contest has shown over the past few years the great development that is taking place in the Egyptian ICT field, with numbers of participants that have surpassed any other contest in the Middle East. Many of the Egyptian contestants have succeeded in reaching the finals of the international contest, in which countries are represented by one team. This year Egypt will be represented by the team the panel will choose today.

Ahmed Adel, Microsoft Egypt Developers Sector Manager, said the final qualifiers will be held in a one day event starting at noon and ending at 8pm. The event will include a special exhibition area in which the software and applications designed for the contest will be displayed. By the end of the day, three teams will be chosen to present their projects to the judging panel in order for them to choose the winning team to represent Egypt in the global contest.

The Imagine Cup Contest is held annually with a different theme each year. This year's contest carries the slogan 'Imagine a world where technology allows education to be better for everyone'. Some believe that education is the ticket to a better life, and some others define education as the chance to expand the horizons of human knowledge. Since education means a lot of different things to people worldwide, the competition givers everyone the chance to innovate and compete to come up with the best ideas of the use of technology in improving education all over the world and make a difference in life.

The contest has been held for four years, during which, more than 100 thousand students from countries all over the world participated. Last year's contest registered 65 thousand contestants coming from 100 countries, including Egypt. Microsoft offers a total of $170 thousand for the competition awards.

In cooperation with Microsoft, a group of local and multinational ICT companies, including Ericsson, Intel, OMS, ITWorx, and LinkdontNet sponsor the competition. OMS, ITWorks and LINKdotNet will offer traineeships during summer 2007 to some of the final contestants, in addition to the valuable awards given out to the winners.