Imagining a better world

There was exciting news recently for the students of the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown when Microsoft announced that the institute was one of only twelve finalists for the Imagine Cup, the company’s global student technology competition. The final will take place in Sandyford on April 10th with a free trip to Paris and accommodation and entertainment on offer to the winning team.

The basic concept of the Imagine Cup is to “imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment.” With this in mind, students at ITB have come up with an application that will provide a facility to monitor energy consumption levels and patterns and provide a test bed for innovative energy reduction initiatives in the construction industry.

This will be achieved by the development of an environmentally aware software system for dwellings that will calculate and forecast energy consumption rates, from which it can offer solutions to reduce energy consumption. The application is seen as being of enormous potential benefit to an industry that is increasingly being subjected to energy efficiency regulations within the EU.

Although the competition is in its sixth year globally, this is only the second year that Ireland has participated. “We were thrilled with the entrants for the 2008 Imagine Cup,” said Microsoft’s programme manager Liam Cronin. “It is great to have so many students in Ireland interested in technology and developing projects to enable a sustainable environment. The 2007 Imagine Cup was a huge success and saw Irish Students travelling around the world showcasing and developing their project.”

The winning team will travel to Paris to compete in the global Imagine Cup competition, where they will be up against the world’s finest. In addition, each member of the winning team gets a laptop and €1,000 goes to the winning college.

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