African apps Matibabu and Videalator were announced winners at the eleventh annual Imagine Cup, the world’s premier competition for student technologists, developers and aspiring entrepreneurs.
The winners were announced at the awards ceremony yesterday (Thursday) in Russia, attended by more than 800 students, judges, awards partners, Russian dignitaries and members of the media from around the world.
Winning projects were announced from the three major categories – Innovation, Games and World Citizenship together with three product-specific challenges and eight special awards from Imagine Cup sponsors.
Team Code 8, from Uganda, won the Women’s Empowerment Award with Matibabu.
Matibabu is a Windows Phone application that diagnoses malaria without getting any blood sample from the body.
The application connects a custom piece of hardware (matiscope) to the Windows phone, then the user is able to diagnose and know their malaria status in the shortest time possible.
The results are then sent to the user’s SkyDrive for medical record keeping and sharing with their personal doctors.
The award in partnership with UN Women recognises issues impacting women globally. Matibabu was awarded a cash prize of US12,000.
In recognition of their outstanding Windows 8 Apps project, the Egyptian Team MASKed Ninjas received a review process to enhance their projects and deliver great apps.
The ninjas’ app Videolater runs on Windows 8/Windows Phone and provides users with the most relevant video to an article, a piece of news or any surface that has a text which can be scanned.
Eighty-seven student teams from 71 countries competed in the Worldwide Finals after winning local and online competitions around the world.
