Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine selected as finalists in two of the Imagine Cup categories

CAIRO, Egypt — July 5, 2009 — The first set of finalists for Tuesday’s Imagine Cup final were confirmed at the close of day two in Cairo, after two hard fought rounds took place during the day in which four teams from Central and Eastern Europe won out. In the two key categories of Software Design and Embedded Development, the final six teams have now been selected to go through to the final tasks and presentations on 7th July.

For Software Design, Poland’s ‘Demoscene Spirit’, Russia’s ‘Vital Lab’ and Romania’s ‘SYTECH’ have all been put through to the finals. In the Embedded Development competition, Ukraine’s Intellectronics will also go through to the final stage. Further tasks and projects will be taking place today as the competitors in other categories are put to the test and whittled down to the few finalists who will get to represent their project and their country on Tuesday.

Imagine Cup calls on young programmers, artists and technologists to rise to the challenge ‘Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today”. Finalists will have their technology projects judged on based on whether they help address the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals which seek to tackle some of the most difficult issues facing our world including halving extreme poverty, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and enabling the provision of primary education for all.

Next year’s Imagine Cup 2010 Finals will take place in Poland and registrations for Imagine Cup 2010 open July 7, 2009. More information about Imagine Cup can be found at http://www.imaginecup.com/ and on the Central and Eastern European teams at http://www.microsoft.com/emea/presscentre/microsoftinceevpr/imaginecup2009.aspx

Software Design
Virtual Dreams - Brazil
Demoscene Spirit - Poland
SYTECH - Romania
Vital Lab - Russia
LADP Development - Spain
Tech-Volunteers -Taiwan

Embedded Development
iSee - China
Wafree - Korea
Brainy Brownie - Mexico
AST - Turkey
Intellectronics - Ukraine
PARV - USA