Lakshmi Nakhhe claims the lives of 1.5 million people each year, motivated by the disease that killed her friends. Sintike Moussau wants to help people like her brother who suffer from loneliness due to a disease that impairs the way the brain understands what it hears. Tyler Kim says he knows how difficult it can be to learn a new language and wants to make education more accessible.
All three students are among the thousands of participants in this year’s Imagine Cup. Imagine Cup is Microsoft’s global competition for students to dream and build new ways to use technology to improve their lives. During its 21-year history, this annual event has attracted more than 2 million students from 160 countries to compete for prizes such as cash prizes, mentorship and training.
Much of the innovation energy revolved around AI this year, with a majority of students coming up with ideas ranging from training AI models to detect disease to using cognitive APIs to assist people with disabilities. We use AI to create
“Students want to make the world a better place by tackling and ultimately solving serious problems, and the use of AI will enable them to do just that,” says the student developer program. said Charlotte Jarconi, Microsoft President of Commerce and Ecosystems, which includes:
“The increase in AI-powered projects at this year’s Imagine Cup shows the potential of AI. Students currently working with AI are quickly becoming aware of the next innovations we can’t live without. may produce.”
Here are some of the teams using AI, including the top 3 teams (Eupnea, TAWI, CS-M Tool) who qualified for the 2023 Imagine Cup World Championship. The event will take place at Microsoft Build 2023 on May 23rd at 8:30 AM PDT.
Eupnea
Most deaths from tuberculosis (TB) occur in countries without access to medical care, where testing and treatment are delayed. A general skin exam is particularly difficult because of the injections he has to visit twice and be re-examined a few days later.
Naake and her team hope that the app Eupnea will encourage people to see a doctor sooner by quickly assessing users’ TB risk.
Users hold a coin to their arm and take a picture of the injection site, and Eupnea, powered by vision tools in Azure Cognitive Services, calculates risk by measuring the magnitude of the skin reaction relative to the coin, the student said. they say. Another AI algorithm is designed to analyze a few seconds of coughing.
“AI will reduce the cost of multiple trips to the doctor, allowing doctors to see results, save lives, and limit exposure to others,” said Chidroop Aihappan, a computer science graduate student at the University of California, Irvine. talk.
The team also hopes to help people complete the long-term treatment needed for tuberculosis through gamified systems and a community that uses Azure Machine Learning to provide people with emotional support. .
The students grew up in India. India has one of the highest rates of tuberculosis in the world and is also where Naake’s friend died.
“We’ve lost friends and family to this disease and seen the impact on communities,” said Naake, who is also a computer science graduate student at the University of California, Irvine. “We are using AI to save lives one breath at a time.”
Tawi
Growing up in Congo, Sintike Moussau saw her brother suffer from an auditory processing disorder that affected his ability to understand language and led to difficulties in school and social isolation.
“My brother doesn’t feel confident communicating with us because of the noise around him, but I think we can,” said Mussau, a computer science student at the American International University in Africa in Kenya.
She and her team are currently building an app called TAWI to help people with disabilities communicate more easily. Leverage Azure Cognitive Services and OpenAI Whisper speech recognition tools to enhance speech, reduce background noise, and convert speech to text in real time.
Users can connect the app to regular earbuds, making this solution more affordable, accessible and discreet than traditional hearing aids. You can also read the transcribed audio on your mobile phone.
Focusing on inclusivity, the team uses AI models to handle different languages, accents, and background noises, from crosstalk and air conditioning to wind, rain, and country animals.
“We want to serve people in all kinds of environments and conditions, whether they are in school, in the office, or living on a farm,” said team member Zakaria Hussain. increase.
CS-MTool
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, but most of it is considered preventable, posing a challenge in low- and middle-income countries where medical care and early detection are difficult to access.
A team of high school students in Thailand is building a screening tool that helps them check themselves for potential signs of heart disease. When the improved stethoscope is connected to a phone, the CS-M tool (short for heart self-monitoring tool) will be able to analyze a user’s heartbeat and provide a cardiovascular disease risk level, the researchers said. there is Students also plan to incorporate conversational AI to answer basic health questions.
