National Finals round of the Imagine Cup Bangladesh 2014 presented by Grameenphone is going to be held at Independent University, Bangladesh on April 26. Today, on April 20th Microsoft excitedly announced Grameenphone as a partner of Imagine Cup in a press conference at Microsoft Bangladesh office in Dhaka.

On behalf of Microsoft, Mr. Pubudu Basnayake was present at the press conference and discussed at length about Microsoft’s contribution to the society, how they are helping students to build apps that capture their imagination and become competitive at the global scale with Imagine Cup. He excitedly continued, “The international exposure a competition like Imagine Cup offers local University students is unparalleled and gives them the chance to showcase their talent and enjoy an enriching experience. This event has grown from strength to strength, with teams from many local universities working on their projects and presentations, setting the bar being higher every year and demanding a greater amount of dedication and hard work.  This year we have managed to organize one of the best locale competitions due to the incredible support extended by Grammenphone and would like to say big thank you for their partnership.”

He also further mentioned that with Microsoft’s help local developer community has built 500 local apps in last several months on Windows and Windows Phone platform which clearly shows Microsoft’s commitment to the community. Hundreds of apps were built through Imagine Cup of 1100 registrants this year with nearly 250 teams during the app summary submission round. After that, 42 teams were chosen to take part in the Selection Rounds which were held at Microsoft Bangladesh office during April 11-12. Now there are only 9 finalist teams in three competitions namely World Citizenship, Games and Innovation of the National Finals. Three winning teams among them will be qualified to attend the regional semi-finals online. Once they qualify even further they will get the opportunity to travel Seattle, home of Microsoft to compete at the worldwide finals.
Mr. Syed Tahmeed Azizul Huq, Head of Corporate Communications of Grameenphone started out with Grameenphone’s vision and execution of the “Internet For All” campaign and he elaborated on how it could help local community to get value from the connectivity. He also expressed his excitement for becoming a partner at Imagine Cup Bangladesh 2014.

Grameenphone has an ambition to make Internet accessible for all Bangladeshi through its Internet for All initiative.  Objective of this initiative is to create equal opportunity to access educational content, news, information, health services and knowledge for all. 

Mr. Tanzim Saqib, Tech Evangelist from Microsoft Bangladesh answered questions in the press conference and added, “Imagine Cup Bangladesh 2014 National Finals is going to be absolutely incredible. Some of the most genuinely innovative and creative teams of the country are competing for the National Championship title after they’ve done years of research. I invite you all to come to Independent University, Bangladesh on April 26th to witness Microsoft’s premier student technology competition.”

Microsoft organizes Imagine Cup in 190 countries, over 1.65M students competed already. This is the fourth time Microsoft is arranging Imagine Cup in Bangladesh, although 11th time worldwide. In 2011, Bangladesh won “People’s Choice” award at the worldwide competition. This year, the scope of competition has grown up to three categories in Bangladesh due to massive response: World Citizenship, Games, and Innovation as oppose to previously just one category. The following National Finalist teams were also present at the press conference:

National Finalist Teams

World Citizenship

• The Imaginarium (Sign of Life) from BUET came up with a hardware based solution that uses SIM cards to rescue people from building collapse, stampede, etc.
• Outliers (Vehicle Black Box) from IUB built a blackbox solution for cars, which is also SIM card-based.
• AUST Geeks (Safety on click) from AUST built a DIY personal security system.

Innovation
• Ekattur (Safety Shield) from AIUB built a solution for crowdsourcing and facebook-mining casualty and traffic related data for app users to stay alert
• IUT_INTEGRITY (RoboRush) from IUT built a virtual gaming experience in reality
• KOBUTORS (StartupKid) from BRACU developed a solution for innovatively engage and boost employee performance and team work in the enterprise landscape

Games
• Karigor (!Prince Charming) from AUST made a game about King, Queen and of course the Dragon. It’s a 3D FPS game.
• BackBenchers' (Bengal Tiger The Last Run) from AIUB – this is a game about saving a cub named Tango in the Mangrove forest of the Sundarbans.
• Muses Studios (Britto) from BRACU – this is a game about a young girl who has to neutralize mysterious extraterrestrial orbs that are raining down on Earth from the night sky as she traverses across a dark, grassy landscape