Thai teams bag honours in global Imagine Cup

Two Thai student teams won third-place honours in their respective categories at the international Microsoft Imagine Cup 2013 Finals in Russia.

They were the MYRA team, consisting of students from King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), and the Clever Mind team, from Mahidol University. They secured third place in the Innovation and Windows 8 Apps Challenge categories respectively. 

 

Team MYRA’s SkyPACS

Team MYRA, comprising Sikana Tanupabrungsun, Sarunya Pumma, Katchaguy Areekijseree and Tananan Pattanangkur, was awarded third place in the Innovation category for their project named SkyPACS. 

SkyPACS is a solution designed to be a management tool, and storage and communication system for medical image such as MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and/or CT (computed tomography) scans. It could be an alternative tool for radiologists by simplifying the diagnosis and management process. 

The system provides three major components to cover the medical-diagnosis process: case management, 2D (two-dimensional) viewer and 3D viewer. The current versions of SkyPACS are Web application and Windows 8 applications. 

Sikana said that the team explored several obstacles that impede radiologists’ working processes and it was during the early stages of searching for practical software solutions that can utilise initial research results that the idea of SkyPACs was formed. 

“SkyPACS [simplifies] diagnosis as it turns your tablet into an effective [tool for] medical-image visualisation with a familiar set of diagnostic tools.” 

 

Team Clever Mind’s Vocable World

Team Clever Mind, comprising Krittinun Sirodom, Piyawut Chantasrisawat, Sirisak Nakaviwat and Sittichote Chathanakul, entered its innovative Vocable World app for the competition. 

Vocable World is proposed as an interactive vocabulary-learning tool that applies the framework of learning, practising and measuring (LPM) with the integration of the game-based learning approach to make the learning process interesting and motivating. Moreover, Vocable World is implemented on both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 platforms, and deploys Windows Azure to manage the information of the system.

 

Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals 

Team MYRA and Team Clever Mind competed against 85 other student teams from 71 countries in the worldwide finals after winning the Imagine Cup Thailand 2013 competition back in April. 

Winning projects were announced for the three major competition categories – Innovation, Games and World Citizenship – as well as three product-specific Challenges and eight special awards from Imagine Cup sponsors. 

Team MYRA was presented with its US$5,000 (Bt155,000) prize money alongside the other competition winners at the Imagine Cup Awards Ceremony, held at the historic Alexandrinsky Theatre in St Petersburg and attended by more than 800 students, judges, awards partners, Russian dignitaries and members of the media from around the world. 

The ceremony was the culmination of a four-day competition and celebration of bringing ideas to life through technology and teamwork. 

This is the 11th year of Imagine Cup. It started in 2003 with just 2,000 students from 25 countries. Over the past 10 years, more than 1.65 million students from more than 190 countries have participated in the Imagine Cup. Thailand has previously won Grand Prizes on three occasions, in 2007, 2010 and 2012, the only country to have won so many times.