Team Inflex wins first place at Imagine Cup

Manama : The local winners of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup 2017 was announced at an event hosted at ART Rotana Hotel in Amwaj Islands yesterday.

Team Influx who created a Virtual Reality technology was announced as the first place winners. 

The second place was won by team O’LINA from the University of Bahrain for their project O’LINA, a mobile application that helps with cooking. 

TEAM1, from the University of Bahrain took third place with project Kiwi, a band which takes reading from EMG, heartrate and other sensors, analyses them to help trainers and athletes in profiling muscles, monitoring workouts and prevent injuries. Cash prize awards for this year’s competition, which marked the 15th year of the Imagine Cup were:  BD2,500 for first place, BD1,500 for second place, and BD1,000 for third place winners, respectively.  Team Influx taking first place will go on to compete against the region’s top talent at the Imagine Cup MEA semi-finals in Lebanon in May.

“It was a really tough competition, all the teams were very good. We never faced such intense competition and we feel very lucky to win this,” said Ali Inayat, a member of team Influx.

“Innovation and entrepreneurship are key elements to give the young generation of this country a competitive advantage to capture tomorrow’s opportunities,” said Sherif Tawfik, Country General Manager, Microsoft Bahrain and Oman. 

“Microsoft Imagine Cup, our flagship initiative, is at the heart of this ambition empowering students with free access to tools and learning resources to create, innovate and make a difference through the power of technology.  We strongly appreciate the support of our sponsors and partners in bringing this year’s season; who share our vision for innovation; in line with Bahrain Vision 2030,” he said.

Bahrain’s version of the Imagine Cup, a global student technology programme and competition, provides opportunities for students across all disciplines to team up and use their creativity, passion and knowledge of technology to create applications and solutions to problems.

The panel of judges for the Bahrain finals to select the winners included Nani Butti, Chief of Information Technology, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Mohamed Kamal, Senior Technical Account Manager, Microsoft Bahrain, Maha Al Banki, Communications Head, Tamkeen, Shaikh Mohamed Al Khalifa from Economic Development Board, Mohamed Al Tawash, Managing Director CH9, and Stefano Pettinato, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP Bahrain

The competition was organised by Microsoft in partnership with Tamkeen, and supported by partners including United Nations Development Programme Bahrain (UNDP), Ministry of Youth and Sports, Start-up Bahrain and Corporate Hub 9 (CH9).