ITBiz | lekasina.com

Bangkok – 17 April 2013 – Microsoft (Thailand) Limited recently held a celebratory event to honor the winning teams of the Imagine Cup Thailand 2013, the Thai edition of the world’s premier student technology competition. The students epitomize the potential IT leaders that could further strengthen the Thai software industry. MYRA team from King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) will represent Thailand at the worldwide Imagine Cup Final in the Russian town of St. Petersburg, Russia, from 8-11 July, hoping to extend Thailand’s reputation as the most successful Imagine Cup country.

The Microsoft Imagine Cup is a worldwide competition in which students use their imagination and passion to find solutions to real-world problems. Thailand is the first country worldwide to win three grand prizes and one 1st runner-up award. In 2012, The ‘Tang Thai’ team from Mahidol University in Bangkok won the global Game Design award with its ‘Verdant Fantasy’ game.

Under this year’s theme “All Dreams Are Now Welcome”, Imagine Cup 2013 centers around three Competitions: World Citizenship, Games and Innovation. This new structure builds on the elements that have been so popular with students in the past 10 years — social impact and gaming — while expanding the competition’s focus on innovation and entrepreneurship. To inspire more students and encourage a wider variety of students to participate in Imagine Cup, the prize money has been doubled to US$50,000 for worldwide first place prizes in each of the competition categories.

Development of future IT leaders will benefit Thailand
Speaking at the awards ceremony for the Thailand edition, Haresh Khoobchandani, Managing Director, Microsoft (Thailand) Limited, said: “The Imagine Cup competition is testimony to Microsoft’s on-going commitment to promoting creativity and IT skills amongst young minds, both in Thailand through our ‘We Make 70 Million Lives Better’ vision, and worldwide. Competing in the global competition inspires students to innovate on the newest and broadest technology platforms, allowing them to build skills that will help them succeed today and advance their careers. The unique skills of the Thai students will in turn help boost the already strong Thai software development ecosystem and further strengthen Thailand’s position as an IT leader in the ASEAN region.”

2013 marks the 11th year of Imagine Cup. It started in 2003 with just 2,000 students from 25 countries. Over the past ten years, more than 1.65 million students from more than 190 countries have participated in the Imagine Cup.

Supported by strong partnerships
The success of the Imagine Cup in Thailand is made possible by the support of a number of sponsors and partners from all areas of society, including Kasikornbank, Nokia, The Software Industry Promotion Agency (SIPA), the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC), Software Park, the Embassy of the United States, and game developing companies.

Her Excellency Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney, Embassy of the United States, said at the event: “In its 20 years in Thailand, Microsoft has continuously demonstrated its commitment to the development of the country. This event is another demonstration of the Thai-U.S. Creative Partnership at its best—a synergy of U.S. technology with Thai innovation and dynamism.”

Art Wichiencharoen, First Senior Vice President, Kasikornbank, platinum sponsor of the Imagine Cup Thailand, said: “As a continuous supporter of the Imagine Cup competition, Kasikornbank is very pleased to support Thai students as they showcase their creativity and develop software applications that contribute to society. We firmly believe that students who join the competition will gain valuable knowledge and experiences that help prepare them to be a part of the capable workforce for the software industry and the country. At Kasikonrnbank, we focus on innovations and see the importance of technology as a key enabler for the country’s progression. We hope that the application of the talented youth will go far on a worldwide level and we will continue our supporting role for the Imagine Cup competition.”

Winners of Imagine Cup Thailand 2013
Team MYRA from KMUTT won the first prize in the Openness & Innovation category and the overall first prize for its SkyPACS application. The team will represent Thailand in the worldwide Imagine Cup Final in St. Petersburgh, Russia, from 8 to 11 July 2013.

It’s the SkyPACS appplicationhas been designed to be an assistive technology for the radiologist in organizing and transferring MRI or CT images with low implementation cost. Other than the ability to display the two-dimensional images, SkyPACS is able to process the three-dimensional objects which can be viewed or printed to facilitate the radiologist in diagnosis. The system focuses on the simplicity and user-experience by relying on a web-based application. The system can be accessed via the internet from any device, such as notebook, tablet, and smartphone. Furthermore, the system is available on Windows 8 platform which enables SkyPACS to perform better on the Windows 8 devices.

Team Vana, also from KMUTT, scooped the first prize in the national World Citizenship category for its A-Eye application. A-Eye is designed and developed to be an application used in the National Park in Thailand which will educate people about eco-tourism and encouraging them to love the nature. It lets people be a part of forest monitoring inside the national park area and save paper by using online contents instead of the paper-based trail maps and information brochures. A-Eye can be commercialized with the park tourists as target customers. The A-Eye service module can be installed and run centrally, while each park can provide downloadable online contents to be used with the A-Eye mobile App. Income can be from the selling of the online contents at a nominal charge for each park, while the App itself can be downloaded from the Windows Store for free.

Prizes

Both teams of students and mentor win 3 days, 2 nights trip to visit the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) and Universal Studios in Singapore. The overall winner will also travel to St. Petersburg to compete on a global level.

Other winners announced at the event included winners of the Nokia Award, who won a Nokia Lumia Windows Phone 8, as well as the award for the Popular Vote, as voted by the public through the Imagine Cup Thailand Facebook Fanpage: www.facebook.com/imaginecup.thailand.

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