THE IRISH entrants in this year’s 10th Microsoft Imagine Cup, hosted in Sydney, made it through to the top 20 finalists.
The winning team, Quadsquad from Ukraine, used specially designed sensory gloves to transmit sign language to a smartphone, which can then play the sounds of the signs – essentially talking for the signer.
The winners were pitted against 72 teams of students from around the world in the software design category.
Applicants for the Imagine Cup competition are invited to use Microsoft technologies to create inventions that can help make a difference in the world.
The Irish team, docTek systems, comprised three students from NUI Maynooth – Donal O’Sullivan (22), Cosmin Siclovan (22) and Marie Farrell (21) – created a smartphone application to help multiple sclerosis patients manage and monitor the disease.
After docTek were crowned Irish champions, they made it through to the 72 finalists, who were invited to showcase their software designs during a five-day conference in Sydney.
The Irish team said there had been a lot of interest in their product from international companies and said the public support had been phenomenal.
“Besides the fact that we made it into the top 20, we can’t feel bad losing to people like that,” O’Sullivan said. “We gave a demonstration today and loads of people approached us about docTek.”
Marie Farrell found out she had MS last year, which spurred the team to create docTek. She was given a journal in which to track her daily symptoms and medications but found it cumbersome and unhelpful.
The students designed docTek to make it easier for her to track how she was feeling every day and monitor her symptoms and also gave her a direct link to her doctor. The doctor can also keep track of the patient’s information using the application and can get an accurate overview of how a patient is faring at the touch of a button.
The students worked with MS Ireland and Prof Niall Tubridy of St Vincent’s Hospital in creating the application.
The students foresee their product being used in further research into MS, with further plans to adapt it to work for other other neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease.