The Tower Up team, made up of PUC-MG students Alessandra Faria de Castro, Érico Grasso, Ramon Coelho de Souza and Daniel Sanabria, is the winner of the Brazilian stage of the Imagine Cup 2016, the Microsoft technology world cup, which arrived to its 14th edition. The group from Belo Horizonte won the competition with the game “O Sonho de Jequi”, an adventure game whose main objective is to develop social work and to value the region of Vale do Jequitinhonha, one of the most deprived regions in Brazil.
Students competed with more than 1,600 participants in the national phase. From the 26th to the 29th of July, in Seattle, in the United States, the Brazilian team will compete with projects from over 100 countries for a prize of US$50,000.
Aimed at children between 5 and 10 years old, the game took about a year to complete and features typical scenarios from the Jequitinhonha Valley. The game's 3D art was painted in watercolor by the team members themselves and uses crafts from the region as a reference. The soundtrack is by the artist Rubinho do Vale. In the game, the player has the opportunity to get to know the Jequitinhonha Valley with the character Jequi and his objective is to collect water, since drought is one of the greatest difficulties faced by residents of the region.
At the end of each phase of the educational game, a screen is shown with the reality of Jequitinhonha and the player has the option of making a cash donation to help people who live in the arid zones of Minas Gerais. The idea is that the resources are destined for the creation of water cisterns and support the NGO Cáritas Diocesana Araçuaí.
Located in the north of Minas Gerais, the Jequitinhonha Valley is one of the poorest regions in Brazil. In 1974, the UN classified the region as “The Valley of Misery”. After 42 years, the IBGE points out that 47% of the population still live in a precarious situation. “Dream of Jequi” aims to give greater visibility to the situation in the region and encourage children to be more aware and collaborative, engaging parents and guardians in the donation campaign.
“Discovering talent like this group from Minas Gerais is what has made the Imagine Cup successful for 14 years, a competition that reinforces support for education and entrepreneurship as a commitment from Microsoft to Brazil. In addition to combining nature with regional culture in a beautiful artistic conception and musical score, the game also allows players to contribute to social projects in the Jequitinhonha Valley – I am sure that Sonho de Jequi will represent the country very well in the world final” , says Richard Chaves, director of innovation and new technologies at Microsoft Brazil.
Project at Azure in Recife also goes to the world cup
In the online challenge Hello Cloud of the Imagine Cup, an extra competition that encourages the development of projects in the cloud, the champion is Deborah Mesquita, 25 years old, who is studying the last year of Computer Science at the Federal University of Recife (UFPE). She also joins the Brazilian entourage that will be present at the Imagine Cup final at Microsoft headquarters in the United States.
In the Azure Machine Learning theme, Deborah developed Super Family, a mathematical operations puzzle for children. The educational game can be tailored to each child's learning curve and adapts to each player's pace.
Brazilian tradition at Imagine Cup
More than 200,000 Brazilians have already participated in the Imagine Cup and, in ten of the fourteen editions, the national teams received recognition. Brazil was the big winner of the last edition, in 2015, with the E-FitFashion team, from the University of São Paulo, in the main category, with the “Clothes for Me” software, which aims to simplify the online shopping process. -line of tailor-made clothing.
Microsoft created the Imagine Cup in 2003 with the aim of inspiring young people around the world to improve the way we live through the use of technology. Students from the most varied disciplines put all the creativity and knowledge in the competition into their projects.
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