• Team Nana Shilpa, the winner of the Health category in Asia, will advance to Microsoft's Imagine Cup World Championships in May 2022
• The other three category winners in Asia include Team Three Stooges and One Master from China for the Earth category, Team Laze Project from Japan for the Education category and Team Sign2Sign from Singapore for the Lifestyle category

SINGAPORE, April 7, 2022  /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft recently announced the top three teams of the 2022 Imagine Cup which includes Team Nana Shilpa from Sri Lanka, the winner of the Health category in Asia. Nana Shilpa is the first mobile application system developed for screening and refinement of dyscalculia and dysgraphia learning disabilities in primary school students using the Sinhala language, incorporating modern machine learning and deep learning techniques.

The other three category winners in Asia include Team Three Stooges and One Master from China for the Earth category, Team Laze Project from Japan for the Education category and Team Sign2Sign from Singapore for the Lifestyle category. Team Three Stooges and One Master from China created a system that monitors the health of chickens by collecting audio sound signals then analyzing and filtering them. It then forms a data set and creates a visualization platform to display the health monitoring with a prediction accuracy for detection of illnesses at 98.97%. Team Laze Project from Japan introduced a programming language that can be written in any language and executed effortlessly, making the early stages of learning programming easier for students, especially in non-English speaking countries. Team Sign2Sign from Singapore created a hands-on and interactive sign language learning app for people to learn signing vocabularies and practice them in conversations.  

Team Nana Shilpa emerged as one of the top three to advance to the World Championships in May 2022 out of the tens of thousands of students from over 160 countries who registered for the 2022 Imagine Cup of which 48 teams advanced to the World Finals. Last week, the 48 teams had the opportunity to showcase their original tech innovations to World Finalist judges through a 3-minute pitch and a question and answer session. Each of the solutions tackled a local or global issue in its competition category--Earth, Education, Healthcare, or Lifestyle--and was assessed based on its use of Azure technology, accessibility and inclusion, marketability as a business idea, and its potential for making an impact.

The expert judges had the unenviable task of determining 12 winners from these 48 worthy competitors. They reviewed and evaluated the diverse, innovative solutions and identified a winning team in each of the four categories within each region—Americas, Asia, and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). These 12 teams are each awarded USD2500 cash and USD2500 in Azure credits and are undeniably winners in their own right given their accomplishments in the 2022 Imagine Cup.

The top scoring team in each of the three regions wins an additional USD2500 cash and USD2500 in Azure credits and will now advance to the 2022 World Championship in May 2022 for the chance to win the grand prize of USD100,000 and a mentoring session with Microsoft Chairman and CEO, Satya Nadella.

The 2022 Imagine Cup is where passion meets innovation—a place where students can build together with like-minded peers around the world to make a difference. Over the past 20 years of the competition, students have created inspiring and inclusive projects using cutting-edge technologies while developing valuable skills during the journey. For more information about Imagine Cup, please visit https://www.imaginecup.com/.

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