Taking home the grand prize of $25,000, Philippine team By Implication emerged at the top of this year’s Microsoft Imagine Cup Game Design competition with its entry called Wildfire, a game that challenges players to battle poverty, gender inequality and environmental degradation and save the world through social action and volunteerism.

The Imagine Cup is the world’s premiere student technology competition which gathers the best developers around the world and harnesses the creative minds of the youth to address problems faced by the world today using the power of information technology.

Team By Implication is comprised of students from the Ateneo de Manila University and University of the Philippines.

Inspired by the spirit of volunteerism displayed by their peers following the damage caused by Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy), Wildfire centers on the idea that rampant social issues can be solved and defeated if people collaborate.

“After the havoc wreaked by Typhoon Ketsana, we saw that Filipinos responded immediately and actively to disaster efforts. We were moved by this and Wildfire demonstrates the amazing things people can achieve when and if they work together,” said Philip Cheang of Team By Implication.

Microsoft recently announced the winners of the 2010 Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals in Warsaw, Poland, where about 400 students from around the world gathered to showcase their innovative ideas that could change the world. Finalists in this year’s Imagine Cup, the largest one to date, received a Windows Phone 7 device.

Student teams competed in five categories: Software Design, Embedded Development, Game Design, IT Challenge, and Digital Media. Runners-up in the Game Design category were team NomNom Productions from Belgium and Gears Studio from France. Thailand, meanwhile bagged first in the Software Design category, followed by Serbia and New Zealand. In the Embedded Development contest, Taiwan, Russia and France won first, second and third respectively. China won first, Bolivia second and Singapore third in the IT Challenge category. Lastly, in the Digital Media category, Taiwan emerged the winner, followed by Saudi Arabia and Singapore.

Aside from these five categories, the Imagine Cup likewise included six achievement awards, which provided more opportunities for students to win cash amounting to $90, 000, prizes and a trip to Poland. The following is a list of the winners:

Envisioning 2020 Award. The Envisioning 2020 Award tests students to come up with their own vision of how technology could transform people’s lives by 2020. In this achievement award, Taiwan got first place while two teams from India garnered the second and third places.

Interoperability Award. The Interoperability Award is designed to recognize the software application that best spur Microsoft technologies and bridge them with other technology platforms to connect data and systems. Teams from Jamaica, Brazil and Indonesia bagged the top three awards.

Next Generation Web Award. The Next Generation Web Award asked teams to write open source Web applications using modern technologies, such as Silverlight or ASP.NET, on the Microsoft Web Platform. Winners hail from Korea, Poland, and Brazil.

Touch & Tablet Accessibility Award. Teams competing for this award had to create a new education application that uses Touch & Tablet technology while expanding the possibilities on how users interact with computers. Two teams from United States won this award.

Windows Phone 7 “Rockstar” Award. This award challenged teams to create a Windows Phone 7 application in either Silverlight or XNA Framework that was original, visually compelling and appealing to the average consumer and that used mobile-oriented features. United States, Indonesia and Malaysia bagged the first, second and third place respectively.

Windows Internet Explorer 8 Award. This award recognized software applications that provide an enhanced user experience by leveraging Web Slices, Accelerators and Search Providers in Internet Explorer. Three teams from Poland won the award while one from Brazil got the award on Accelerator, Poland for Web Slice and Russia for Visual Search.

Students competed with their own created projects, which focused on solving challenges in education, healthcare and the environment.

Cheang mentioned that competing at the Imagine Cup was an experience the team will never forget. “We are honored to represent the country in the Imagine Cup. Competing with the best design and developer teams from other countries opened our eyes to the many ways we can apply technology to encourage social action,” he said.

Microsoft announced that the Imagine Cup 2011 Worldwide Finals will be held in New York City. To learn about the Imagine Cup 2011, visit http://www.imaginecup.com.

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