Two Effat projects among top five in Microsoft Imagine Cup

This international competition is held to inspire new approaches and methods in dealing with social and technical problems. The competition for this year is held under the theme "Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment" and took place at the Jeddah Hilton.

Seven finalist projects from different universities and colleges were evaluated by 8 judges from KFUPM, KAAU, KSU, Effat College, Al-Ahli Bank and Microsoft. They were two projects from King Saud University, one project from Arab Open University, one project from King AbdulAziz University, one project from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and two projects from Effat College.

"The experience was great for our students to be exposed to in the outside world, to present their work and defend it. This refines their communication skills and also creates the feeling of what it is like to be leaders in their student community," said Dr. Houria Oudghiri, Chair of Computer Science Department at Effat College.

Dr. Azza Abu Zeid, Chair of Information Systems Department at Effat College added, "The importance of this competition in not what the students will learn, but how they will apply and use the knowledge they learn in a way that contributes to society effectively."

"Environmental Awareness Website for Children" came at the second place. The friendly software, which educates children about the environment to know more about our earth and most importantly how to maintain a healthy environment was presented by Basma Al-Harbi and Maram Al-Nafie, Computer Science senior students.

"The second place winners, our students, bring a human factor in their project because their project aims at changing people's habits with the environment and they start with children because they are tomorrow's citizens," said Dr. Oudghiri.

The fourth place was won by Jood AlSudairi and Sara AlBarakaty who presented "Bin Hayan: Virtual Chemistry Lab", a software to simulate chemistry experiments used in teaching Chemistry. The objective of the project is to provide a friendly environment to learn Chemistry and an environment friendly software to reduce the use of chemicals and avoid the pollution at the personal level especially for people with allergies.