From left: Adeboye Oshinaga, Abiola Olaniran , Akinbiyi Omole during their presentation to the judges on sunday, in Warsaw, Poland at the ongoing 2010 Microsoft Imagine Cup software competion :photo by Emeka Aginam

By Emeka Aginam, in Warsaw, Poland

 

While soccer teams battle to win the World Cup in South Africa, talented students from across the globe who are currently in Warsaw , Poland,  struggling  for the last stage  to find out who will win the World Cup of technology.

With the first two intense days of project presentations and judges’ questions finally over, the 68 student teams participating in the Software Design  competition at Microsoft’s Imagine Cup have been trimmed  down to 15 teams that will go for the final stage tomorrow, Wenesday.

Meanwhile, the Central and Eastern European student teams have done very well with Croatia, Malta, Serbia and Ukraine making the semi-finals.

Already, there appears to be atmosphere of anxiety and expectations as to  which team wins the 2010 cup software competition in software design, Game design and embedded development.

Many countries including Belgium, France, and Philippines have emerged game designs finalists while France, Korea, Romania, Russia, Taiwan and UK emerged finalists in the embedded design.

With this development, the finalists teams in the three categories are expected to present their projects   at  the Warsaw Opera House stage in front of a live audience, raising the level of excitement even further heading into the World Festival Thursday this week when the final result will be announced.

It would be recalled that about   400 software incubators from 69 countries and regions around the world who can use technology to solve the world’s toughest challenges had contested  on Sunday during the first round of competition at the on-going world’s premier student technology competition, the Imagine Cup 2010 initiated by the global software giant, Microsoft.

More than 325,000 high school, college, and university students in 113 countries and regions had entered the competition.

The Imagine Cup encourages young people to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world – today. Now in its eighth year, the Imagine Cup has grown to be a truly global competition focused on finding solutions to real world issues.

Open to students around the world, the Imagine Cup is a serious challenge that draws serious talent, and the competition is intense.

The contest spans a year, beginning with local, regional and online contests whose winners go on to attend the Worldwide Finals held in a different location every year.  The intensity of the work brings students together, and motivates the competitors to give it their all.

The bonds formed here often last well beyond the competition itself.