News and Events

BU students ahead of the game

8 July 2009

BU software systems students are among the top three in the world after their outstanding achievement in Microsoft’s Imagine Cup.

BU software systems students are celebrating after taking third place in the world’s biggest student technology competition, the Imagine Cup. As a result, they have picked up a cash prize of 5,000 US Dollars.

Stephen Marks, Daniel Lisle, Paul Grattage and Karsten Pedersen, under their mentor, Dr Cornelius Ncube, from BU’s School of Design, Engineering & Computing, competed in the Game Development category, under their team name, Sanguine Labs.

The world finals of the Imagine Cup, endorsed by Microsoft were held in Cairo, Egypt. From the 100,000 groups (300,000 students) that applied, 140 groups (444 students) were selected for the worldwide finals.

BU competed against Brazil and the USA in its category to secure a top three finish. As well as prize money, the Imagine Cup has given the team excellent business contacts, experience and the knowledge that they are among the best in the world.

This is an outstanding achievement and represents two ‘firsts’ for Bournemouth. The opportunity to represent the UK in Egypt was as a result of BU coming first in the national finals last month. It was also the first time the University has entered a team.

The students’ brief was to create an inspirational and educational video game to address the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and help solve some of the problems facing the world today.

In response to this, Sanguine Labs created a highly innovative and original concept. Their game, called ‘Defile of Eden’ gives the player a chance to experience two gameplay modes; each mode requires virtual choices and decisions which have huge consequences for the environment, as team member Daniel Lisle explains:

“We wanted to focus on the idea of pollution, and the basic theme that there are two types of people in the world; one type wants to look after the earth and the other wants to destroy it. So we focused on that in a multi-player format and pushed the concept within the gaming environment to show that how you treat the planet can have a real effect.”

Open to students around the world, the Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition. It is a serious challenge that draws serious talent, and the competition is intense. The contest spans a year, beginning with local, regional and online contests whose winners go on to attend the global finals held in a different location every year.