Vote for Your Favorite Student Tech Innovations

REDMOND, Wash., March 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Students across America have been dreaming up ways to solve the world's toughest problems using the magic of software. They are competing in the Imagine Cup, the world's premier student technology competition hosted annually by Microsoft Corp. Starting today and running through April 23, the public is invited to learn more about the U.S. finalist teams, view videos about their innovations, and vote for their favorite Software Design idea at http://www.imaginecup.us/peopleschoice.aspx.

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"We believe that students have the power to change the world," said Anthony Salcito, vice president of Worldwide Education, Microsoft. "Encouraging students to study science and technology is critical to developing a skilled 21st-century work force. Through the Imagine Cup, we are bringing together the brightest young minds and empowering them to use technology to make a difference in the lives of people in their local communities and around the world."

More than 14,000 high-school and college students throughout the country registered for the competition, and 20 student teams were chosen to participate in the Imagine Cup 2010 U.S. Finals in Washington, D.C., on April 26. The U.S. finalists will vie for the chance to represent the nation among students from over 100 countries and regions in the worldwide finals this July in Warsaw, Poland.

Participants use their creativity, passion and knowledge of technology to design solutions to enhance education, healthcare and environmental sustainability. Student projects this year range from an educational video game that allows students around the world to interact to a business intelligence tool designed to analyze and recommend ways to lower the electrical consumption of computer networks. Competitions at the U.S. Finals are conducted in several categories including Software Design, Game Design and Web Design. The U.S. Imagine Cup finalists include the following:

Software Design U.S. Finalists

• CDSS-AI, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
• Coders Inc., Illinois Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Extraplaid, Utah State University
• LifeCode, Wayne State University
• MangoBunnies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, DePauw University
• MedRx, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
• Mobilife, University of California, Davis
• Mogollar, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
• Team Blob, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology
• Tesla Project, San Jose State University

Game Design U.S. Finalists

• AwesomeSauce, Tufts University, School of the Museum of Fine Arts
• Coffee Powered Altruism, Yale University
• Cosmopolis, University of Southern California
• Darkwing Duck, Golden West College
• Fortran and C, University of California, Los Angeles
• Ifrit Salsa, University of Houston
• LeveL13, University of Houston
• Red Team, Springbrook High School, Maryland
• Team Name Not Found, Arizona State University, Tempe
• To Be Announced, Central Piedmont Community College

Although the U.S. finalists for these competitions have been selected, there are still opportunities for students in America and around the world to participate in the new Envisioning 2020 Award and the Windows Phone 7 Series "Rockstar" Award categories. Participants can extend current projects underway in the main competition categories for these special awards or can enter the awards exclusively.

The Envisioning 2020 Award challenges students to express their vision for how technology could transform people's lives by the year 2020. Students are asked to create video submissions that are inventive, have the greatest potential for impact and are the most technically plausible to transform our lives 10 years in the future.

To win the Windows Phone 7 Series "Rockstar" Award, Windows Phones and cash prizes, teams are challenged to create a Windows Phone 7 Series application (app) in either Silverlight or XNA. Windows Phone 7 Series is a revolutionary new platform from Microsoft, and participating students have the opportunity to be one of the first developers to build an app for it. Students enrolled in the Microsoft DreamSpark program, which provides free access to some of the most advanced developer tools from Microsoft, are waived registration fees for the Windows Phone Marketplace.* Free Windows Phone Developer Tools are available at http://developer.windowsphone.com.

More information about the Imagine Cup is available at http://www.imaginecup.com and the official Imagine Cup blog.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

*More information on Windows Phone Marketplace policies and supported countries can be found at http://developer.windowsphone.com.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.