2013 Imagine Cup Finals open in St Petersburg Monday

The finals of the 2013 Imagine Cup, one of major international technology competitions, open here on Monday. A winner is due to be determined on July 11. "Post-graduates and students from various countries may participate in the competition, in a team or alone. The task of participants is to use their knowledge and imagination to demonstrate how information technologies can help resolve present-day global problems," says a post on the competition's official website. About 300 students from 69 countries will present their projects. During competitions, participants must be able to introduce their projects to the jury within a space of 15 minutes and prove that this particular project can improve the the world. Competitions will be held in three main nominations: socially significant projects, games, and innovations. The results of online competitions -- during which participants vie in developing applications for Windows 8, Windows Phobe, and Windows Azure -- will be summed up as well. For a win in main nominations, provision is made for monetary prizes amounting to $50,000 (1st place), $10,000 (2nd place), and $5,000 (3rd place). Prizes for a win in online competitions will be $10,000; $5,000, and $3,000 respectively. Organizers point out that this year's prizes are the highest in the history of the Imagine Cup competition whic has been held every year since 2003. Russia will be represented at the Imagine Cup Finals by the winners of regional finals -- two teams from Moscow and one team from Cherepovets. The team of Cherepovets State University will present a Gesis project. This system based on Kinect (controller from Microsoft for game consoles and computer-aided control of gestures) is designed for rehabilitation of children with illnesses of the central nervous system and locomotor apparatus. Gesis constitutues a computer game with the use of vibration devices: in the process of the game children estabalish a synchronized functioning of hands, legs, and sense organs, by means of which they can coordinatedly move, maintain body equilibrium, and shift about. The team of Moscow Aviation Institute will show a Lasercraft project -- a game which Windows Phone uses as the player's interface and an infrared ray as position marker, which makes it possible to use augmented realitty, GPS, an accelerometer, a compass, and mapping of objests of the game world on the interactive card in the process of the game. The team of the Higher School of Economics national research university will demonstrate a Kinect Magic project -- a system of innovative presentations and performances, using Kinect controller to produce unusual effects. The 2013 Imagine Cup - 2013 competition is held in partnership with the Agency of Strategic Initiatives, the Skolkovo Foundation, Skolkovo Open University, Nokia, MTS, Samsung Electronics in Russia, Rosatom state corporation, USN Computers, DevExpress, Mail-ru Group, KFC, and ABBYY.