July 05, 2015
Under the Patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander, and Chairman of the Economic Development Board (EDB), Bahrain hosted the Pan Arab finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2015. Microsoft together with the EDB, Tamkeen and the eGovernment Authority (eGA) announced the names of the three winning teams of the event.
The event was organised in strategic partnership with the EDB and supported by a number of local organisations such as Tamkeen, eGA, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), National Bank of Bahrain (NBB), Bahrain Airport Company (BAC), YK Almoayyed, Batelco, Exceed IT Services & Training, and Gulf Future Business.
With youth representing a large segment in Bahrain, and the largest pool of the workforce, events such as these signify the importance of strengthening creativity and innovations in youngsters in the Kingdom to keep up with the global transition to a more knowledge-based economy. Imagine Cup allowed the participating teams to refine their skills, invest in their creative capabilities, and unleash their entrepreneurial ideas in order to achieve excellence on the local, regional, and international fronts.
Team T2 from Tunisia, Team BCR from Palestine and Team Freedom Fragrance from UAE will travel to Seattle to represent the Arab World at the Worldwide Finals. Team BCR from Palestine was then named Arab World Champion taking home the Imagine Cup trophy and a special award, one-week internship at Tech Wadi, Silicon Valley.
‘Back in Time’ by Team T2, winner of Games category, is a 3D game where the player is able to play as a young character in a post-apocalyptic era. Earth is destroyed by nuclear war and most of its population turned into zombies. The player will travel back in time to save the world by infiltrating military zones and disabling nuclear heads in it.
‘Brain Controlled Robot’ by BCR Team, winner of Innovation category, uses EEG signals or brain waves reading technologies to help paralysed people around the world communicate with the people around them, also give them access to control things that make them partially independent on others help.
The Imagine Cup Pan Arab Semi-Finals was a culmination of a months-long series of contests that brought together the brightest young minds from various Arab countries to showcase the power of student innovation. Thirty-six student teams, first-prize winners of the national rounds of Imagine Cup 2015 in 13 countries from Middle East and North Africa region all competed for the Imagine Cup 2015 Pan Arab Champion title.
The 36 student teams presented their projects to different judging panels, two panels for each of the 3 categories; they assessed the projects based on the Imagine Cup criteria for each category including concept, execution, use of technology, relevance to the category, and feasibility. The first-place winners: Team T2 (Games), Team BCR (Innovation), and Team Freedom Fragrance (World Citizenship) then went on to compete live on stage before an audience of 300 people where a distinguished judging panel asked them three rounds of questions inspired by Imagine Cup Infographic “Dream it! Build it! Live it”; Team BCR received the Imagine Cup Pan Arab trophy and a one-week internship at Tech Wadi, Silicon Valley.
