The Software Design world finals line-up is known

On Wednesday the national stage of the Imagine Cup competition took place, in the Software Design category. The day before there had been a poster session, where the judges could look over every project and talk to the team members. The judges picked five teams, who then had 20 minutes each to present their ideas.

They were (in the order they presented):

• eVolve from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań – their project, reACT, made it possible to run therapy for various kinds of autism and phobia in a virtual environment, where the patient's own movements interacted with what was happening in that environment,
• Mutant from the Military University of Technology in Warsaw – PULSE, which monitored the working of the heart and warned the user (and an operator, whose phone would be alerted so that help could be called quickly) about threats to their health,
• Fteams from Lodz University of Technology – using two plain webcams they built interPeter, a system that translates sign language into written language and back, making communication easier in offices, at the post office and so on,
• The Eradicators from the Military University of Technology in Warsaw – with a parody of the series "House" they presented Care2, a system for modelling social networks and using them to analyse epidemics and to find the individuals whose vaccination, for instance, would defeat a disease fastest
• Dreamcraft from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań – the last project presented was Soundability, which recognises sounds in the surroundings (alarm signals, for example) and reports them on the phone screen and through vibration; it was intended for the hard of hearing.

First place went to Fteams, and it is them who will travel to the world finals in Warsaw in July; second place went to MUTANT and third to The Eradicators. Fourth place was shared by eVolve and DreamCraft.

Additional prizes were also handed out:

• the prize for the best interface designer went to Magda Jonczyk of the fteams team,
• honourable mentions in the Internet Explorer 8 Award category went to the teams BlueLight, Cieszak Team, OneTeam, Rhea and Sampi Design,
• prizes funded by Helix Ventures went to fteams and The Eradicators.

On top of that, the Ministry of Economy intends to start working with all of the teams. The ministry has prepared several projects whose completion would matter to the Polish economy.

Congratulations to all the teams, and we wish them further successes.