TCD Computer Science Students Win Microsoft Imagine Cup

Posted on: 18 May 2009

Third year students from Trinity College’s School of Computer Science and Statistics, Aidan Lynch, Eoin O’Brien, Ros McMahon and Maria Francesca O’Connor were recently awarded first prize in the Irish Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition.

The Trinity students were one of twelve teams which made it to the competition final out of a total of 550 entries from third level institutions throughout Ireland. This year’s competition theme was ‘Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today’. The winning TCD team will represent Ireland in the international finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup which will take place in Cairo this July.

Pictured are Eoin O’Brien, Ros McMahon, Paul Rellis (managing director, Microsoft Ireland) Aidan Lynch, Mary Hanafin, Maria Francesca O’Connor, Daniel O’Byrne (team mentor).

Known as the Trinity Sight team, the TCD students developed and built a simulator for eye surgery training that uses computer game technologies to teach the hand and eye co-ordination needed for delicate surgery, in particular complex operations such as cataract removal surgery. Existing simulators cost approximately €100,000. The Trinity team state their new simulator can be made with off-the-shelf components enabling surgeons in the developing world to be trained faster and at lower cost.

Created by Microsoft, the Imagine Cup competition encourages young people to apply their imagination, their passion and their creativity to technology innovations that can make a difference in the world today. In its seventh year, the Imagine Cup has grown to be a global competition focused on finding solutions to real world issues. Open to students around the world, the competition is a serious challenge that attracts real talent. The contest spans a year, beginning with local, regional and online contests whose winners go on to attend the global finals. 

Presenting the awards at the competition final, Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin stated to the competing students: “Genuinely, we are depending on you, your ideas, your education, your entrepreneurial spirit and the energy you are able to bring to ensure the type of work will ensure we can carry on to set up our own companies, get investment and get patents.”