UC students to represent Australia in the worldwide Imagine Cup for the second year running

Canberra, Australia - 3 July, 2007 - Students from the University of Canberra will be heading to Seoul, South Korea to represent Australia in the Imagine Cup for the second year running.

The winning team impressed judges with its technology that gives visually impaired people better web access and an easy way to program in programming language C#.

"The Imagine Cup is a tough competition requiring competitors to use high level skills to solve real-world problems. To be named Australia’s best two years in a row demonstrates the excellence of our courses, the passion of our students and the relevance of their skills," head of the School of Information Sciences and Engineering Associate Professor Dharmendra Sharma said.

Now in its fifth year, Imagine Cup has grown to be a truly global competition garnering more than 65,000 student entries worldwide. The University of Canberra team will compete against an expected 372 teams from across the world in South Korea for their chance to share in more than US$170,000.

Team APA (Audio Programming Assistant) developed the technology in consultation with Vision Australia and demonstrated its effectiveness by programming in the .NET system and accessing websites with their screen covered at the competition in Melbourne last week.

Winning student Miss Ngoc Thuy Duong Khuu explained the system allowed all information to be entered using a keyboard rather than a mouse, with an audio system to allow users to hear what they were programming. Support to train blind users was available online, she added. Moreover, the system provides a customised web browser that reads out the links on a web page and lets users fill in fields and dialog boxes. She hoped the technology would allow more blind and vision impaired people to study IT.

Microsoft Australia’s technical audiences manager Ben English said the quality of Imagine Cup entries in 2007 demonstrated the wealth of young talent in Australia.

"These students are the future leaders in technology and business, for Microsoft the Imagine Cup is one way in which we can fire up student passion for innovation and creativity in technology."

"One of the most important elements of the Imagine Cup is the ability for teams to give their ideas exposure, make critical business contacts and to make projects commercially viable," Mr English said.

Graham Templeman, adaptive technology consultant with Vision Australia will also attend the event.

"Vision Australia works in partnership with the community to assist people who are blind or have low vision to live the life they choose. The idea for this project is something that we are really excited about as it has the potential to open up the world of possibilities for our clients," Mr Templeman said.

"Accessing information is one of the biggest issues facing people who are blind or have low vision and Vision Australia applauds the students from the University of Canberra for taking the initiative in addressing this issue," he added.

The University also took second place for the second year in a row with a system to convert lecture notes into audio files. Students can play the notes back on their MP3 player in a choice of languages with the system, which also incorporates a study scheduler.

The Imagine Cup 2007 worldwide finals will take place in Seoul, South Korea. More information is available online at http://www.imaginecup.com.