The international final of the world’s largest student IT competition, the Imagine Cup 2014, has taken place in Seattle, organised by Microsoft. 125 students representing 34 teams from across the world battled for the prizes. The winners of the ‘Games’ category was the Russian team Brainy Studio, from Perm National Research Polytechnic University (PNRPU) with their project TurnOn.
The Russian team received a grant of $50,000 for the future development of the project. The prize was awarded to them by Alexey Pajitnov, who developed the iconic game Tetris.
Brainy Studio also won the €20,000 AppCampus Award, a prize offered by Microsoft alongside the University of Aalto in Finland and aimed at helping with the creation of innovative mobile applications.
TurnOn is an adventure game in which the user plays as an electrical spark which is trying to restore power to a city. In creating the game, the team was inspired by ‘Earth Hour’, a worldwide event during which people across the world turned off their electricity in order to raise awareness about climate change and saving energy. The game was previously marked highly by judges in the Russian final of the Imagine Cup 214.
Cofounder of Brainy Studio Evgeny Romin said: “We are very proud that we could win such an important competition. Taking part in the Imagine Cup is an invaluable experience. For us winning the competition has given us a real impulse to develop the project further. We are doing everything we can to take every possible benefit from our participation.”
The judges of the competition included Satya Nadella, new CEO Microsoft, Hadi Partovi, head and cofounder of Code.org, and Erik Martin, General Manager of Reddit., amongst others.
Mikhail Chernomordikov, director of Microsoft’s Strategic Technology Department in Russia said: “Microsoft tries to create opportunities for young people to develop themselves. I am very glad that the Russian students from Perm could create such a strong project and win at an international level, following the tradition of the Russian school of games development. I hope that they will be able to use the opportunities they have gained for the development of their own successful startup.”
Source: CNews.ru
