SINGAPORE - Media OutReach^[1] - 5 April 2021 - Microsoft today announced the top 4 World Finalists^[2] of the 2021 Imagine Cup competition, including 2 teams from Asia, Team ProTag^[3] (New Zealand) winning the Earth category andTeam Threeotech^[4] (Thailand) emerging top in the Lifestyle category. This was following an exciting two rounds of the World Finals where 12 shortlisted teams gave a 3-minute project pitch followed by a Q&A session with judges to compete for a spot in the World Championships in May.

This year's 2021 Imagine Cup virtual competition saw tens of thousands of teams from 163 countries using innovative technologies, like AI, Power Platform, and Big Data to develop their ideas into impactful and inspiring technological solutions that make a difference. World Finalists had to submit innovations in one of the four competition categories: Earth^[5], Education^[6], Healthcare^[7], and Lifestyle^[8]. 

All four World finalists impressed the judges with their innovative ideas, pushing the envelope on the possibilities of improving our society as well as creating a brighter and inclusive future for all. From Asia, under the Lifestyle category, Team Threeotech developed a solution, "JustSigns", a web application for content creators to create sign language captions to improve media accessibility for their hearing-impaired viewers. In the Earth category, Team ProTag created a solution, "ProTag", a smart ear tag for livestock that uses technologies like mixed reality, IoT and Azure to detect the early onset of illness in real-time. This is part of efforts to inculcate sustainable farming, lower costs and increase animal welfare along with providing farmers with a peace of mind. Both teams from Asia will be competing alongside two other teams from Kenya and United States for the Imagine Cup World Championships trophy in May, along with USD75,000 and a mentoring session with Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft Corp. 

Other teams from Asia that participated in the World Finals Competition include:

• Team Intelli-Sense (India): Under the Healthcare category, Intelli-sense developed a solution, "Vision" that seeks to leverage cutting-edge technologies, to provide a sense of vision for the visually impaired by providing solutions to help them perceive their surrounding in real-time.
• Team DataMasker (China): Under the Lifestyle category, DataMasker developed a solution, "WellMask", an Artificial Intelligence social mask built to enhance social interaction. It is integrated with technologies to support "real-time speech transcription", "intention extraction" and "emotion recognition".
• Team Virtual Radiologist (Nepal): Under the Earth category, Virtual Radiologist developed a solution, "Pico Sat", a miniature version of an environmental satellite that utilizes the Azure platform and PowerBI. It aims to provide information about your environment - altitude, temperature, humidity, pressure, dust and pressure level of present time - be it a small room or open space or betterment of Earth's climate.

Held annually since 2003, the Microsoft Imagine Cup is the world's premier student technology competition, affectionately known by participants as the "Olympics of student technology competitions". This year's Imagine Cup encouraged participants to "Dream it. Build it. Live it" in order to create applications that shape how individuals live, work and play and through their creativity, passion and knowledge of technology. For more information about Imagine Cup, please visit https://www.imaginecup.com/^[9].

References

1. ^{^} Media OutReach (www.media-outreach.com)
2. ^{^} top 4 World Finalists (techcommunity.microsoft.com)
3. ^{^} Team ProTag (imaginecup.microsoft.com)
4. ^{^} Team Threeotech (imaginecup.microsoft.com)
5. ^{^} Earth (techcommunity.microsoft.com)
6. ^{^} Education (techcommunity.microsoft.com)
7. ^{^} Healthcare (techcommunity.microsoft.com)
8. ^{^} Lifestyle (techcommunity.microsoft.com)
9. ^{^} https://www.imaginecup.com/ (www.imaginecup.com)