Microsoft has announced the 2024 Imagine Cup World Champion.
Takeaway Points
- Microsoft has announced the 2024 Imagine Cup World Champion.
- FROM YOUR EYES, a start-up that has built a mobile application and API that offers real-time visual explanations to users with a vision disability, was crowned the 2024 World Champion.
- The Imagine Cup is a visionary global technology competition for student startups building with AI.
- The startup that won the Imagine Cup 2024 will earn USD 100,000 and an exclusive mentorship session with Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella.
Microsoft announced on Tuesday, in a blog post, that it has announced the 2024 Imagine Cup World Champion. FROM YOUR EYES, a start-up that has built a mobile application and API, that offers real-time visual explanations to users with a vision disability, was crowned the 024 World Champion.
Zülal Tannur, Founder and CEO of FROM YOUR EYES, said, “After losing my vision completely at the age of ten, I knew I would never be able to see biologically again, but I believed it could be possible with technology.”
Zulal added, saying “Being a startup with a visually impaired leader as the Founder and CEO naturally leads us to approach these issues with great sensitivity. For example, our CTO, Ege, is a person with autism, ADHD, and dyslexia. We create the most conducive working conditions for him. Prioritizing acceptance of each other with all our differences and unconditional support are fundamental to us. I want to prove that a leader who is visually impaired can be strong, independently capable of building groundbreaking technology, and that being a young, female entrepreneur doesn’t hinder you from establishing and managing a company,” Zülal said. We don’t believe there is anything this team cannot achieve when we’re together.”
What is the Imagine Cup?
The Imagine Cup is a visionary global technology competition for student startups building with AI. 2024 Imagine Cup has more than 20,000 student entrepreneurs from around the world. Startups were narrowed down to semifinalists, and finally, the top three startups emerged, selected by a panel of judges. These judges, including CEO of Neo and Co-founder of Code.org, Ali Partovi, and Founder and CEO ROYBI, Elnaz Sarraf, the report said.
This year’s finale Imagine Cup took place at Microsoft Build, where the three world championship finalists showcased their groundbreaking innovations on a global stage, hosted by Microsoft CVP of Ecosystems, Annie Pearl, and Principal Cloud Advocate, Dona Sarkar, Microsoft said.
According to the tech giant, the startup that won the Imagine Cup 2024 will earn USD 100,000 and an exclusive mentorship session with Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, and the two other runner-ups, JRE and PlanRoadmap, were each awarded USD50,000 in prize money to help propel their startups forward.
About FROM YOUR EYES
Microsoft said that FROM YOUR EYES was created out of a profound personal need and a visionary goal of Zulal, who lost her vision at age ten. She encountered various image processing technologies, though none provided the effective real-time solutions she needed; this sparked the idea for FROM YOUR EYES. Through her involvement with Microsoft’s Seeing AI initiative, Zülal met other developers who were visually impaired from around the world, and they inspired her to delve into coding.
Using GPT-4 and their own image recognition technology, FROM YOUR EYES has built a mobile application and API, which offer real-time visual explanations to users with a vision disability. The mobile application enables users to design their own AI assistant to obtain descriptions of photos, videos, or other visual documents – and works with smart glasses and watches to describe aspects of the users’ environment, the tech giant said.
In 2020, FROM YOUR EYES’ journey started; they won first place in an idea marathon, and over the next year and a half, they continued to innovate. In 2021, the team started prototyping and joined the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, where they have since received USD $150,000 of Azure credits and access to the Microsoft for Startups Expert Network, which helped them continue growing their business.
