CCIS Students Capture 3rd Place in National Software Design Competition
May 2005, the national round of Imagine Cup Software Design Invitational was held in Redmond, WA. In attendance were a team of Northeastern students with their entry eVt. The Imagine Cup, sponsored by Microsoft, is a multifaceted technology competition aimed at college students around the world. The invitational consists of contests in artificial intelligence, business plans, algorithms, and five others in addition to software design.
Northeastern’s team consisted of Jorel Fermin, Churk Leung and Maurice Peltier. Jorel and Churk are recent graduates of CCIS. They worked for many months to plan and develop a program to breakdown communication barriers using mobile devices, speech software, and the latest programming technologies in accordance with the theme of the competition, dissolving the boundaries between us. After taking first place in the regional competition, they went on to win 3rd place overall while being matched against some of the top computer science programs in the country. .
The winning entry, eVt, is an application designed to enable the use of technologies such as speech-to-text, text-to-speech and language translation in series with such devices as smart phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptops with the purpose of overcoming the boundaries of language. Those who formerly could not share their thoughts can use eVt as a medium for the transmission and expression of ideas. This is a great example of Northeastern students applying their knowledge and experiences from the classroom and co-op to solve interesting and useful problems.
Imagine Cup and other collaborative initiatives with Microsoft are run by the Student Ambassador program, led this year by graduating CCIS senior Kevin Sullivan. Look for events such as the Imagine Cup next year and help Northeastern defend its title.
A full copy of the press release is available with a photo of the winning team.