IIT Students Win Microsoft Imagine Cup People’s Choice Award
Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is pleased to announce that Coders Inc., a team of IIT electrical and computer engineering graduate students Krishna Rao Vijayanagar and Yamini Girey, and Georgia Tech student Shayok Mukhopadhyay, has won the 2010 Microsoft U.S. Imagine Cup People's Choice Award for AwareNet, an online forum created to provide non-governmental organizations, volunteers, donors, and vendors with a way to interact and share resources. The eighth annual U.S. Imagine Cup finals competition, the world’s premier student technology competition sponsored by Microsoft, was held April 23 – 26, in Washington, D.C.
The team members collaborated online via Skype, developing the idea for AwareNet, and were chosen as one of 10 Imagine Cup finalists and People’s Choice Award nominees in December 2009, after the U.S. Fall Competition. Throughout the spring semester, the team worked to transform the idea into a working web application for the U.S. finals. Of ten projects chosen as People's Choice Award nominees, AwareNet garnered the most votes and highest overall ranking from the public during the voting period that ended on April 24.
More than 22,000 students registered for this year’s U.S. competition and 80 were selected by a panel of judges to compete in the U.S. finals. The participants were tasked to use technology, innovation, and creativity to help make a difference in the lives of people in their local communities and around the world, addressing issues in education, healthcare and environmental sustainability. While attending the three-day national finals event, the students had the opportunity to attend a variety of presentations and demonstrations, meet prominent industry and government representatives, and take a Segway tour of the capital.
With additional knowledge gained at the U.S. finals, Coders Inc. plans to fully deploy AwareNet in the coming months, and is currently seeking venture funding for the project. Visit the AwareNet blog,awarenet1.wordpress.com, for more information about the project, the competition, and the team.
For more information about the Microsoft U.S. Imagine Cup, please visit www.imaginecup.us.
Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting university with more than 7,700 students in engineering, sciences, architecture, psychology, design, humanities, business and law. IIT's interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum is designed to advance knowledge through research and scholarship, to cultivate invention improving the human condition, and to prepare students from throughout the world for a life of professional achievement, service to society, and individual fulfillment. Visit www.iit.edu.
