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    Aussie students place 3rd in Imagine Cup global finals

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    The University of New South Wales students Brad Lorge, Matthew Moss and Nick Darvey make up Team Confufish Royale, who achieved third place in the World Citizenship category of the global finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup in St Petersburg, Russia. Our creative little Aussies are pictured with their mentor, Maurice Pagnucco.

    At the finals, 305 student technologists and entrepreneurs comprising 87 teams from 71 countries were challenged to create a better future by using technology and their imaginations to solve some of the world’s toughest problems through innovative solutions. The teams competed for prizes and awards totalling more than $1 million.

    Team Confufish Royale, whose project consisted of an intelligent food distribution solution that could help millions of Australians who rely on food aid to receive nutritious and life-saving meals, were awarded US$5000 to help further develop their project.

    In addition, after 11 years of the finals taking place around the globe, Steve Ballmer announced via a prerecorded video that in 2014, the worldwide finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup will take place for the first time at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, US.

    From The Team

    A group of us were in the bar at uni one night watching TED videos, and an incredible fact was mentioned – “We have enough food in the world, more than enough, we just don’t know how to get it to where it’s needed”. Being a group of Engineers, we realized we might be able to help – and Foodbank Local was born. / / The group has passionately progressed from there, and picked up a number of contributors including the largest Foodaid provider in the country, one of the worlds most sophisticated logistics engines and lately the biggest food retailer in the country. / / The key philosophy behind the team is: The biggest impact we can make is to find something good and try to build upon it. / The key PROJECT philosophy is: Enable communities to take care of each other.

    “Taking care of one another, and making sure we all have enough to eat is a problem that traditionally was treated as low tech. Our team have been able to unlock the power of computing for the not-for-profit foodaid sector. It’s changing how possible people think it will be to SOLVE this problem. The project has been validated by the immense interest from partners – they can see where we can work with them, and how much potential it unlocks.” / / “Foodbank Australia, the School of Computer Science and Engeering, Microsoft, NICTA and our soon to be announced industry partners have all invested more than we could have ever imagined in the success of this project. We are going to launch the system within weeks and it is down to the passion and dedication of our partners. Their mentorship and support has changed every member of our team, and we would do it all again just for that experience.” / / Brad Lorge

    Congrats guys, enjoy the prize, now go kick some ass.

    More info at the Imagine Cup website.

    techau
    techauhttp://techAU.com.au
    This post is authored by techAU staffers. Used rarely and sparingly when the source decided to keep their identity secret, or a guest author who isn't seeking credit.

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