Beezinga – winner of Imagine Cup
With the announcement of the winning team at the event ‘Oscars of student innovations’ that took place yesterday in Maribor, the Slovenian selection for the biggest global student competition Microsoft Imagine Cup was finished. This year’s global final competition will take place in the Russian St. Petersburg in July. Slovenia will be represented by the team Beezinga with their system for analysis and early warning of events in apiaries. Imagine Cup 2013 builds on the foundations such as trying for a better world and socializing with peers from all over the world, while also giving more attention to innovations and entrepreneurship. In the previous years, success on Imagine Cup encouraged the creation of new high-tech companies in Slovenia.
‘In the past decade, more than 1.65 million young people from 190 countries competed in local and regional selections, as well as at the worldwide finals of Imagine Cup. Slovenian teams are always amongst the most successful participants. We believe that this will be the case this year as well, since the teams of the Slovenian selection have once again shown a lot of creativity and ideas with the potential to change the world for the better with the help of newest technologies. Slovenian Microsoft would like to offer congratulations to the team Beezinga for an excellent project and wish it a lot of success in Russia. They now have an opportunity to gain unforgettable and extremely valuable experiences on the most demanding world stage. These experiences will, without a doubt, accompany them in the continuation of their personal and professional path,’ said Boštjan Stražar, chief operating officer for the field of development of applicative solutions in Microsoft Slovenia.
Slovenian selection Imagine Cup 2013
Within this year’s Slovenian selection Imagine Cup, organisers received 19 applications of student teams from all three Slovenian universities. Nine applications were in the category ‘Social Responsibility’ and five in both the category ‘Games’ and the category ‘Innovations’. Idea descriptions and photographs of finalists are available on the website .
‘Hard work and innovation are a prerequisite for being a finalist at Imagine Cup. Presented solutions meet both conditions and I’m glad that Slovenia still has such young talents. Congratulations to all finalists and good luck at the finals for the winning team,’ said Miha Lesjak, member of the expert committee and director of the company Inova IT.
The winning team Beezinga with members Nenad Čikić, Jernej Škrabec and Jernej Gračner from University of Maribor, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science excited the expert jury with their system for analysis and early warning of events in apiaries. The system is based on obtaining data from apiaries automatically, while beekeepers can simply monitor over the mobile and web application. Students decided to develop this solution because bees are one of the most important as well as one of the most threatened parts of the ecosystem.
With some luck, two other finalists of the Slovenian selection can attend the worldwide finals in St. Petersburg. Team Drone Attack, best in the category ‘Games’, and team Dora, best in the category ‘Innovations’, placed in the most inner round of the online selection for the global competition. From this selection, the organisers of the finale in St. Petersburg will choose the best teams and invite them to participate directly.
Slovenian selection Imagine Cup 2013 is organised by Venture Factory, RC IKT from Kranj, Technology Park Ljubljana and Microsoft Centre for innovations, as well as numerous non-governmental institutions and companies. Global initiator and sponsor of the competition is Microsoft.
