Nigeria has been eliminated from the on-going Imagine Cup competition, holding in Cairo as six finalists emerge from the 12 countries that made the semi-final round in the Software Design category.
The 12 semi-finalists were: Brazil, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Mexico and Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and the United Kingdom; while the six finalists are Brazil, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain and Taiwan.
A total of 67 countries had participated in this category. Nigeria’s ‘TeamX’ presented a project titled, Autonomous Health System X (AHSysX), which is a healthcare system that provides automated response to ailing pregnant mothers and/or their infants, through SMS.
Coincidentally, another African Team, 'Galsen Inov' from Senegal also had a similar project titled, ‘WICHI Assistant' or 'Woman and Child Assistant’, a platform for monitoring the pregnant mother and her child.
Finalists were also announced in Embedded Development and Game Development categories. For the first, they were China, Korea, Mexico, Turkey, Ukraine and the United States of America; while in the second were Brazil, United Kingdom and United States.Uganda’s ‘Team e-Farmer’ is however one of the five teams aiming for the Design for Development Award, which will be presented at the closing ceremony today.
Others are China, Indonesia and Malaysia, with two teams, Sponsored by ‘Microsoft Unlimited Potential’ the Award challenges students to create a software solution that is accessible to users in under-served communities.
To meet the unique challenges of providing relevant technology access, projects are required to leverage the SMS and voice capabilities present in basic mobile phones.Uganda’s Team e-Farmer’s project titled, ‘A Parent’s Hope, A Child’s Future’, is an innovative solution that allows farmers and traders to buy and sell crops though an SMS-based auctioning system. It also allows farmers to query weather forecasts, market information and seek expert advice on day-to-day agricultural questions.Contestants in the nine-category competition had been challenged to ‘Imagine a world where technology helps to solve the toughest problems facing us today’.

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