Dubai: The regional finals of the ninth annual Microsoft Imagine Cup competition will take place on Monday at the American University in Dubai with contenders from three UAE university teams.
Students from the University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD) and the University of Sharjah will go head-to-head with teams from Kuwait and Oman. They will be competing for a spot in the global Imagine Cup finals to be held in New York in July.
The theme of this year's technology competition, running for the third year, calls upon students to imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems.
"Imagine Cup allows students to become visible at a global stage and we have also looked at bringing people from the student community into Microsoft," said Michael Mansour, group director of developer and platform technologies at Microsoft Gulf. "We hired two students on the spot at the US finals."
He added that although the competition is not aimed at serving as a hiring ground, it is a chance for students to showcase their talents on a worldwide level.
"I look at some of the projects and am impressed at how practical and useful the ideas are," said Mansour. "It's refreshing to see young minds at work, harmonising technology with the creativity young people inherently have."
Last year's competition had 325,000 worldwide competitors including 2,000 from the GCC region. Students will be competing for prizes of up to $25,000 (Dh91,842).
