AUC Students’ Project Honored at Microsoft Competition

Cairo, Egypt, May 07, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Two teams from The American University in Cairo’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering were honored recently at Microsoft’s Innovation Day by Egyptian Minister of Information and Communication Technology Tarek Kamel and Chief Executive Officer at Microsoft Corporation Steve Ballmer. Among 63 teams from all over Egypt, the AUC SmartGive student team was selected the top fourth team, while eXcreen was selected the Best Windows Mobile Application team in the Imagine Cup competition, the world’s premier student technology competition.

“To AUC, this demonstrates the quality of our graduates and their innovative capabilities,” said Amr El-Kadi, professor and chairman of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. “Coming in on top of 63 teams, especially in the area of mobile computing, the area of the future, not only for Microsoft but for the whole field, is a true reflection of the cutting edge capabilities we have.”

eXcreen, which comes from the term exterior screen, is a mobile application on Windows mobile platform, aiming to “break free from the restrictive boundaries of the mobile screen,” said Alei El Din Salem, team member. The other team members include, Mohamed Yamama, Nader Fares, Sherif El Guindy, Ahmed Mofeed and Sherin Sabry.

“Our next step is to patent the project and this award will accelerate the process,” said Salem. Once they receive a patent for their project, Salem and his team plan to take it further and enhance their project to be applied in the real world.

Salem, who wants to establish a company along with his team to apply innovative ideas into real projects, believes that there are innovative people at AUC who can compete on the international level and can create projects that can be appreciated by world-renowned corporations.

The other project, SmartGive, is a worldwide social network where NGOs, volunteers, and donors all around the world can gather to share experiences, help discover new areas which need assistance, and work on projects in impoverished areas. Yasser Ebrahim, one of the team members, explains that the aim of the project is to make it easy to find people who can help in a certain zone and cooperate with organizations that could provide funds. “We believe this is how technology could help alleviate the problem of poverty and inequality around the world,” says Ebrahim.

“We are very dedicated to our cause and our idea is much bigger than just a competition. After all, the target was to help solve one of the world's prominent challenges - hunger, education, AIDS - so we cannot by any means stop at this point. We are in the phase of planning for further development of the project, and we started seeking software companies including Microsoft Egypt for potential sponsorship,” adds Ebrahim. The other team members include Hend Adel Arafa, Karim Ahmed Awara and Sara Morsy.

Computer science and engineering students participate annually in top international computing competitions and have always enjoyed high rankings. “We have always secured a top position in the annual ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) International Programming Contest where we have been rated number one in Egypt, Middle East and Arab Region and ranked among the top 30 teams worldwide. On previous events of the Imagine Cup, we have been selected to represent Egypt and our team was actually invited for dinner at Bill Gates’ home,” adds El-Kadi.

The American University in Cairo (AUC) was founded 90 years ago and is major contributor to the social, political and cultural life of the Arab Region. It is a vital bridge between East and West, linking Egypt and the region to the world through scholarly research, partnerships with academic and research institutions, and study abroad programs. An independent, nonprofit, apolitical, non-sectarian and equal opportunity institution, AUC is fully accredited in Egypt and the United States.

###