Main One Partners Microsoft for Imagine Cup 2013

Main One, West Africa’s leading communications services company has emphasized its commitment to the development of innovative, and locally developed software with its partnership with Microsoft on Imagine Cup 2013. Imagine Cup is a premier student technology competition, where student innovators from all over the world, compete to produce various ground-breaking app ideas,

Main One was the sole bandwidth sponsor, providing superfast broadband internet connectivity to the event for live-streaming and apps demonstration.

The National finals of the competition, and the Stakeholders’ Forum, which held at a prestigious location in Victoria Island, had in attendance over 80 students with participants competing for a place in the worldwide finals, previously hosted in Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Korea, France, Egypt, Poland, USA and Australia, now to be held in St. Petersburg, Russia from July 8 to 11, 2013.

In total, 12 teams from Nigeria competed during a challenging day of presentations, which brought together students from universities across the country with Team Life Saver emerging winner.  Members of the team interestingly, cut across two of Nigeria’s foremost tertiary institutions, Obafemi Awolowo University and Ladoke Akintola University of Technology.  They competed in the category of World Citizenship.

Their solution titled CardioLife is designed to tackle heart attack by monitoring heart reading on the fly via the Microsoft Windows Phone.  The solution also provides a rehabilitation programme for stroke patients using Kinect sensor.  The team will go on to represent Nigeria at the global finals where the lucky winner stands the opportunity to win a whopping prize of $300,000.

Speaking at the event, Head of Marketing, Main One, Mrs. Jumoke Akande, said “New technology is rapidly changing businesses, socio-political landscapes and the lives of consumers in Nigeria and Africa as a whole. Main One has consistently recognized the opportunities software development, especially indigenous, will play in Nigeria’s development. We therefore support initiatives, like Imagine Cup, that equip our youths  with necessary technology competencies and platform to materialize their innovative ideas”. 

In a statement made by Yinka Oni, National Technology Officer, Microsoft Anglophone West Africa, “Each team that competed in the regional finals is deserving of the highest recognition for the creativity and imagination applied to some of the world’s biggest challenges. We’re proud to honour these young students who we believe truly exemplify the spirit of the Imagine Cup competition, and we’ll be cheering Team Life Saver on as they compete on the world stage in St Petersburg”.

Since the first Imagine Cup in 2003, over 1.65 million students across the globe have participated in Imagine Cup and a number of the teams that made it to the finals (and many that have not) went on to create thriving startup companies in their various countries.