Taken from: The Jamaica Observer
BY COREY ROBINSON Career & Education staff reporter robinsonc@jamaicaobserver.com
NORTHERN Caribbean University (NCU) will be going to Cairo, Egypt this July as finalists in the Microsoft Imagine Cup software development competition.
This is the university's third time at the international finals. They finished third in 2007, after failing to make the top three in 2005.
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| Northern Caribbean University coach Henry Osbourne (second right) celebrates with his team members (from left) Dwayne Samuels, Shawn McLean, Derron Brown and Trevoir Williams (right) following their national victory in the Imagine Cup software development competition at Microsoft's offices in New Kingston last month. |
Team members - Dwayne Samuels, Shawn McLean, Derron Brown and Trevoir Williams - secured their tickets to Egypt after beating Peru and Costa Rico in the Multi-Country Americas (MCA) finals on Wednesday.
Last month, they crushed Trinidad & Tobago and Puerto Rico in the regional finals, after emerging victorious over the University of Technology (UTech) in a national finals held at the Microsoft offices in New Kingston. The international finals will be held on July 3 to July 7.
NCU's project was aimed at eradicating world hunger by fusing local farming with international technological development. This is in keeping with the theme: 'Help us change the world'.
"The team is ecstatic where that (international final) is concerned, but we also know that we have a lot more work to put in from now until the actual date, so we are basically gearing up to tackle the new challenges that we have to face," said Henry Osbourne, coach of the NCU team.
"Going to the finals reinforces something that we already believe - contrary to popular perspective that technology is only in the eastern hemisphere and the US, Jamaica has a strong technical background and if given the right opportunities we can go on the world stage and perform well. The talent is here," added Osbourne.
The Imagine Cup competition has been running since 2003 and spans a year with local, regional, MCA and the International finals, hosted in different countries annually.
More than 130,000 students from 100 countries entered in 2007, which saw the grand finals being held in South Korea. The finals for the competition in 2008 was held in Paris, France.