By Kamran Rehmat
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Australian duo Jarrel Seah and Jennifer Tang were awarded the Imagine Cup World Championships 2014 at a glittering ceremony at the Washington State Convention Centre in Seattle on Friday.
Seah and Tang beat young contestants from around the world with their project Eyenemia, whose pivot is a simple and non-invasive screening tool for anaemia that analyses and calculates the risk for conjunctiva through eye selfies.
They took home the coveted cup in a hotly-contested finale - renamed as the World Championships - for the 12th edition of the global student technology competition sponsored by Microsoft.
Not only will they take home $50,000, but will also have the honour of getting a personal mentoring session from the legendary Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft.
Some 4,000 Microsoft employees, the participating teams and their mentors, panel of judges - including the likes of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Code.org founder Hadi Partovi and Reddit.com GM Erik Martin - field experts and members of the press from around the world were on hand to witness the iconic event.
After winning the World Citizenship category, the Australian medical student duo had to compete with the Russian team, which won the Innovation category, and the New Zealand team, which landed the top honours in the Games category.
Each team faced three rounds of questioning from the Microsoft CEO, Code.org founder and Reddit.com GM to win the ultimate prize for the world’s youth in technology. In this rapid-fire session, each team was asked one question in each round by each of the judges with a time limit of just 90 seconds.
Both the Russian and New Zealand team struggled to convince the judges, especially in the context of how they would market their respective ideas. Ultimately, the finalists are challenged to prove the business model of their projected idea.
The clincher was Seah’s candid response to Microsoft CEO’s question regarding how would the former sell the idea to insurance companies in the developed world.
The Australian student admitted that even though he “lacked experience with insurance companies”, he thought insurance companies “can use this as a preventative health measure” — to a round of applause.
The Australian team’s success assumes greater significance given that it is the first time the event was held at the home of Microsoft, the world’s premier technology powerhouse, and the sponsor of the event, despite making its debut in 2003.
Talking to Gulf Times, which was exclusively invited to the event, a delighted winning Australian team said it was not just about winning the prize.
“We are delighted - and honoured - to have won the cup. Our hardwork has paid off,” said Seah.
“Nearly 2bn people around the world suffer from anaemia, 293mn of which are children. Some 20% of maternal deaths are also related to the menace,” the lead technologist pointed out.
“With Eyenaemia, we can calculate the risk of anaemia without having to undergo any invasive procedure by analysing a photo of the eye - simply taken like a selfie,“ said Tang, who is the lead designer.