A team of students from Indonesia was among the 49 student teams from 33 countries that competed in tech and innovation competition the 2018 Imagine Cup World Finals, held recently in Redmond, Washington, the United States. 

Representing Indonesia, Team Beehive Drones, consisting of three students from the University of Manchester, presented a drone system that can be operated via a mobile application and allows farmers to conduct farm analysis and other agricultural tasks. 

"We are honored and thrilled to be able to represent Indonesia at this year’s world finals of the 2018 Imagine Cup,” BeeHive Drones CEO Albertus Gian said in a statement. 

The Indonesian team’s mentor was Irving Hutagalung, audience evangelism manager and commercial software engineer at Microsoft Indonesia.

“At Microsoft, we continue to encourage young innovators to have the courage to step up and develop solutions that will solve real-world problems,” Irving said.

Read also: Indonesian students shine at RoboCup 2018 competition in Montreal

Held annually since 2003, student teams compete for cash, travel and the opportunity to be mentored by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. 

Team smartARM from Canada won the competition with their robotic prosthetic hand that is powered by Microsoft Azure. The hand is equipped with a camera embedded in the palm to help recognize objects and calculate the most appropriate grip for the object. 

Second place went to Team iCry2Talk from Greece, whose project enables parents to decipher the meaning behind a baby’s crying in real-time.

Team Mediated Ear from Japan came in third with software that allows hearing-impaired individuals to focus on a specific speaker in a multitude of conversations through the help of deep learning. (liz/kes)