The Hindu Business Line : Ambani IT institute wins Imagine Cup 2007 India leg

Ahmedabad May 7 The India leg of the Imagine Cup 2007, the world's premier platform for student innovators, came to a glorious close as team Blue Leaf from the prestigious Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DAIICT), Ahmadabad, walked away with the first prize of Rs 1 lakh.

This team will now go on to compete with the best teams from across the world at the worldwide finals of Imagine Cup in August 2007 at Seoul, Korea, where a total of $170,000 (approximately Rs 76 lakh) is on offer for the top teams, according to a release here today.

The Imagine Cup India 2007, sponsored by Microsoft, and organized in association with Nasscom, saw 11 teams from eight States vie for the top three spots. Team Gras, from Goa Institute of Technology (GIT) and team Aabha from Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Allahabad, were judged first and second runners up, and awarded Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000, respectively.

Global contest

Now in its fifth year, the Imagine Cup is a global contest held by Microsoft to provide student innovators from across the world a platform to showcase their software development skills. Over 12,000 students from more than 1,000 colleges across India participated in this year's competition, with 11 teams from these short-listed to showcase their software solutions in front of an eminent panel of judges comprising of academicians, industry representatives and venture capitalists.

More categories

More than 1,00,000 students from nearly every country in the world, entered this year's competition, surpassing last year's count of 65,000 participants from 100 countries. The year 2007 has also seen the competition categories increase to nine as compared with six last year, allowing technology students with diverse backgrounds to participate in the Imagine Cup.