During April 24, 2014, Microsoft Philippines officially hosted the Imagine Cup 2014 Philippine Finals which was held in Casa Blanca Intramuros, Manila, Philippines. The event was filled with so much pride, enthusiasm and patriotism since everyone is in their own national attire in an old pre-Hispanic setting in line with celebrating the great yet world class talent of Filipinos in innovation.
So who won this year’s Imagine Cup Philippine Finals? Some amazing students with their world-changing ideas!
Games Category
Team Animus topped the Games category with FitPals, an app that combined fitness and play and utilized the power of Xbox Kinect to enable children to remain active. Team Animus is comprised of students from De La Salle – College of St. Benilde namely Charlene Ho, Patricia Alonzo, Flerizza Sanidad, and Juan Manuel Maningo.
Congratulations to Team Animus for winning first place in the Imagine Cup 2014 National Philippines – Innovation Category. Learn more about their app, FitPals here.
Innovation Category
Team PewPew conquered the Innovation category by adding a touch of personalization to storytelling with FUNIMALS, an app that generates stories based on pictures selected by children. This Pew Pew is a group of students from De La Salle University Philippines currently taking up BS Computer Science major in Software Technology, represented by Joyce Guiao, Matthew Go, Mark Anthony Castilo, and Oliver Brian Syson.
Congratulations to Team PewPew for winning first place in the Imagine Cup 2014 National Philippines – Innovation Category. Learn more about their app FUNIMALS here.
World Citizenship Category
Team TALA, winner of World Citizenship category, presented ReLink — an app that will help people sell their pre-loved belongings instead of throwing them away. Team Tala is a group of students from different colleges and universities in the Philippines that aim to make a difference in the world – Paul Villena and Paul Jethro Ganzon from Adamson University, Yvette Watson from Treston International College, and Mark Erwin Villarina from Mapua Institute of Technology.
The word “Tala” is the Tagalog term for “star” and also the name of the goddess of stars in Tagalog mythology. Just like the stars at night that give light and hope in darkness, we have committed to bring hope by developing a solution to help solve one of the pressing problems in our world today.
Congratulations to Team Tala for winning first place in the Imagine Cup 2014 National Finals Philippines – World Citizenship Category. Learn more about their app, ReLink here.
Now What’s Next?
Our teams have finally submitted their respective entries for the next round, the World Semifinals. During this round, amazing teams will be selected to represent their respective countries at the Imagine Cup 2014 Worldwide Finals this July in Seattle, Washington. At the worldwide finals they will compete for the coveted Imagine Cup trophy, up to $50,000 USD in prizes and a chance to meet Bill Gates!
Three teams top the Games, Innovation and World Citizenship categories of the Imagine Cup local finals.Winning teams stand tall and eager to represent the Philippines in the Asian Finals.[L-R] Paul Villena, John Jethro Ganzon, Mark Erwin Villariña and Yvette Watson of Team Tala; Charlene Ho, Patricia Alonzo, and FlerizzaSanidad of Team Animus; Joyce Guiao, Miguel Maningo(Team Animus), Oliver Syson, Mark Castillo of Team Pew Pew.
Once again, Congratulations to all the teams who participated in this year’s Imagine Cup Philippine Finals, and as well as to the official partners- Department of Science and Technology, Smart DevNet, and the Intramuros Administration for making the event possible.
In about few days’ time, we are about to determine the fate of our World Semifinalist teams, Team Animus, Team Pew Pew and Team Tala. Who among them will make it to the cut?
We are of course hoping for the best, hoping that all of our teams will advance to the Imagine Cup 2014 World Finals in Seattle, Washington this July.
A Remarkable Accomplishment by the Philippines in Imagine Cup 2014
We also wanted to highlight the great performance on the world stage by a team from the Philippines in this year’s edition of the Imagine Cup.
User Experience Challenge – 1st Place | World Champion
Hundreds of teams of students from more than hundred colleges and universities from different parts of the world competed in the 2014 Imagine Cup User Experience Challenge. In this contest Imagine Cup asked students around the world to dig deep into their project’s user experience: the flow a user encounters with the software, the information architecture of how menus and screens are connected, wireframe examples of a couple of major screens, and finally a visual target showing one example of how the finished software would look.
Congratulations to Team Hiraya who earned the title of First Place/ World Champion for the User Experience Challenge for Innovation.
These three students at Treston International College, represented by Gabriel Eric Majo Villanueva, Jomarie Marquez and Neo John Tuquero, have designed a beautiful app integrating timetables, maps, ratings, and dynamic data that could be the salvation of many busy travelers. Microsoft Imagine Cup is thrilled to recognize the design skills of Team Hiraya and award them the first prize of $3,000 in the Innovation category.
Meet the Winners of the User Experience Challenge featuring Philippines’ own Team Hiraya here. In line with their winning, the Philippines was the first team from Asia who made it in this year’s list of Imagine Cup Winners. Check out the entire list here.
Microsoft Philippines Academic Team 