Microsoft's Imagine Cup, a competition inviting software developers around the world to "imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems" in 2012, has now announced the winners of its UAE countrywide competition.

Imagine Cup UAE, which concluded this past Monday, brought five countrywide finalists in the Software Design category to Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai to present their ideas to a panel of judges, including industry veterans from du, Wamda, ASUS Middle East and Emirates Group. The first place winner will win ASUS laptops and will continue on to the Worldwide Finals from July 6th to 10th in Sydney, Australia.   

Taking the winning spot was Team Revolution, whose project ‘Reutilizer’ was designed to help individuals tackle waste management and biofuels via a mobile application and website. The website is especially useful for small restaurants, as it uses a mapping algorithm to group nearby individuals and stores, thus optimizing pickups and making routes more efficient. 

The team, which consisted of Shawn Frank and Ronak Dave from the University of Wollongong in Dubai, won for their approach and vision, which is especially relevant in a delivery-heavy environment like Dubai.

"Team Revolution creatively added gamification elements to their platform to promote awareness of a topic that the public is generally unfamiliar with: biofuel," said Roland Daher, Wamda's Head of Business Development, who sat on the judging panel. "They combined great execution on their technical platform with an outstanding presentation. They still have to crack some aspects of their business model, but their potential is indisputable."

Second place was given to Samazons’ Sleep Apnea monitor project, which also received the best Mobile Development Award, and third place went to Team Craino’s Sparkaa project. 

The people’s choice award, determined by audience members, was awarded Team AEMA-Creations’ Absolute Security project which secures any software or digital product against piracy by using advanced encryption 

“It gives me great pleasure to see how far Imagine Cup has come since 2003 when the competition only included 1,000 participants,” said Samer Abu-Ltaif, Regional General Manager, Microsoft Gulf. “I’m looking forward to seeing team Revolution compete globally at the Imagine Cup 2012 worldwide finals in Sydney and wish them the best of luck.”