On March 19-20, 2014 the International Cultural Center of Tomsk Polytechnic University hosted the regional stage of the World Student Technology competition of the software projects «Imagine Cup 2014", organized by Microsoft Innovation Center at the TPU Institute of Cybernetics.

«Imagine Cup» is the largest world technology competition, held annually since 2003 with the support of Microsoft and other companies and nonprofit organizations. The competition helps to identify and develop the capabilities of young people in the field of information technology and to facilitate the communication of the students from all over the world. It contributes to the new developments in technology and to the development of IT-industry.

Nikolay Pryanishnikov, the President of Microsoft Russia, presented awards to the winners. All the winners received their prizes (pads, e-books, translation software, etc.) The winning team won the right to participate in the Russian finals to be held in Moscow in April 2014. The winners of the Russian stage of the competition will go to the International Final to be held in Seattle, USA, where they will have a chance to get a grant for the development of the project and to talk personally with Bill Gates.

11 student teams from the Siberian universities presented their projects.

• 1st place: Team J-SO, project “Author”, Altai State University. The project involves the development of an innovative application that allows creating books with other users.
• 2nd place: shared between Team Necrobiosis Entertainment, project “Cyber Quest”, the TPU Institute of Cybernetics and Team Geek.Three, project “KaTrIna”, Plekhanov REU.
  “Cyber Quest” project is the development of the platform-game with the elements Hack'n'Slash in 2D projection, which is designed for different mobile platforms and computers with loadable content.
  “KaTrIna” project is the monitoring of social networks in order to prevent suicidal tendencies in teen-agers at the early stages.
• 3rd place: shared between Team VA-Tech, project “Interactive zone”, Plekhanov REU and Team Seismo, project “Earthquaker”, Novosibirsk State University. Project “Interactive zone” is a handy interactive map for large shopping centers, using which any visitor can not only save time searching for necessary goods and services, but also to make a bargain.
  Project “Earthquaker” involves the creation of a game in which the solution of logic puzzles based on various physical effects of the real geological processes.

It is worth noting that traditionally this event is very popular and attracts a lot of people, in particular during 2 days about 300 people participated in the activities.