Two Romanian teams of students are among the winners of Microsoft's Imagine Cup 2007 in Seoul, South Korea. The results are more than laudable as the finalists were filtered down from a pool of in excess of 100,000 students coming from more than 100 countries around the world. On August 10, the Redmond company revealed the winners of Imagine Cup 2007. The Thailand Team 3KC Returns with Project LiveBook! Grabbed the first place in the worldwide Software Design Invitational. Prachaya Phaisanwiphatpong, Vasan Chienmaneetaweesin, Jatupon Sukkasem, Pathompol Saeng-Uraiporn were awarded no less than $25,000 in cash.

"Imagine Cup provides a forum for university students around the world to explore new ways to use the power of software to help address some of the world's toughest problems," said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft. "The high caliber of the students and their projects is an indication of their potential to become great business and technology leaders, and a hint at how a new generation of innovations can have a lasting and transformative impact on education and beyond."

Microsoft describes the Imagine Cup as the "the world's premier competition for technology students, gives students the chance to unlock their creative genius and build solutions that tackle real-world issues facing society today." Team Aether from Romania came in second place in the Embedded Development category. Alexandru Vranescu, Bogdan Tanasa, Ionel Vuza, Bogdan Holmanu worked their magic with a Windows CE operating system and are going to take home a cash prize of $4,000.

In the IT Challenge individual competition, Ilie Cosmin Viorel occupied the third place with his extensive knowledge of networks, databases, and servers, as well as the general process of decision making in an IT environment. $3,000 went to Viorel for his performance in the Imagine Cup.

"Imagine Cup is truly a global contest of software creation, capturing not only the spirit of competition, but also the broader goal of tackling development challenges through innovation," said Dr. Abdul Waheed Khan, assistant director-general for Communication and Information at UNESCO. "We recognize the importance of developing ICT expertise among young people throughout the world. By challenging students to develop working solutions to development challenges, Imagine Cup allows new ideas and new economic opportunities to flourish."