December 7, 2012 · by Elly Okutoyi

Uganda and Egypt startups get US$50,000 each from Microsoft

Microsoft has awarded US$50,000 each to a Ugandan and Egyptian student startup for the medical mobile applications they developed in its Imagine Cup challenge.

The teams include Team Vivid from Egypt, which developed an app for accessing medical records in the cloud, and Team Cipher256 from Uganda that developed a Windows phone app dubbed Winsenga, which comes with a special listening device that analyses fetal heart rates and records readings to the cloud using Microsoft’s Azure offering.

The two teams are among other international finalists that featured in the global competition, including Team Graphmasters from Germany, who invented a navigation system dubbed Nunav that reduces carbon emissions -- an invention that won the grand prize of US$100,000.

The second best was Team StethoCloud from Australia, which won a grand prize of US$75,000 with a technology that diagnoses childhood pneumonia.

“The Imagine Cup Grants will help students evolve a great idea for addressing a societal issue into a real-world business,” said Dan’l Lewin, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of strategic and emerging business development said in a statement.

“These students have developed incredible approaches that show great potential for positive local impact. We are excited to offer financial and other support to help them transform these ideas into businesses with real-world impact,” he added.

Imagine Cup is termed as world’s most prestigious student technology competition, bringing together student innovators from all over the world, and help them bring their ideas to life.

Microsoft has set aside US$3 million to be granted to innovative ideas from students all over the world in a period spanning 3 years.

Earlier this year, Microsoft chose five teams who have shared part of the money.

The software giant has of late been injecting money into innovative ideas across the world. Just recently, together with Google, Microsoft announced (http://goo.gl/abTwy ) that they will channel US$ 39 million aimed at bettering the society.

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Uganda and Egypt startups get US$50,000 each from Microsoft

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