“One idea in two shared minds could express number of ideas ” said Mo’ataz Sa’ed, IT staff member and lecturer of three students from Islamic University of Gaza, who participated in Imagine Cup 2009 world finals after being the first team from Palestine.
The Imagine Cup 2009 world finals closed Tuesday night in Cairo after 444 college students from across the world competed in nine categories July 3-7. The backdrop during the sessions was Cairo and surrounding landmarks such as the pyramids, the Nile River, the historic Citadel, and thousands of picturesque mosques.
Imagine Cup is an annual student technology competition sponsored by Microsoft. Young thinkers from across the world use technology to try to address the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, which include fighting poverty and hunger. More than 300,000 students from 100 countries and regions competed this year.
“The creativity and imagination that students poured into their projects this year was incredible,” said Joe Wilson, senior director of Academic Initiatives, Developer and Platform Evangelism Division at Microsoft. “Many of these projects have the potential to have a serious impact on how we address society’s most pressing issues. We hope that all of the students who participated this year will continue their pursuit of creating technology in the service of making the world a better place.”
The IUG team participated in a project titled “ Weather Prediction Using Neural Networks” and presented this creative idea among the huge regional and international teams to prove the genius Palestinian abilities under the atmosphere of war as well as the imposed siege.
Among the huge number of world teams, Mr. Wilson praised the coming of Palestinian team after the agony of war and siege in the area.
