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25 April 2017 - Team HeartSound from Singapore emerges the 1st Runners Up in the Microsoft Imagine Cup Southeast Asia Finals! Team HeartSound showcased their wearable S3 smart stethoscope which tracks abnormal heart sounds to improve health. Congratulations to Anthony Chew, Sean Wong and Lian Min for their hard work and for achieving this amazing feat! They will be flying to Seattle to take part in the Worldwide Finals. Joining them will be 6 other teams from Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Philippines! Read more about Team HeartSound and their solution at our blog posts here. #ImagineCupSEA #ImagineCup

To celebrate the inaugural edition of Imagine Cup Southeast Asia (SEA) Finals in the Philippines, we held a special live streaming event at Nanyang Polytechnic where fellow students could cheer and support their classmates in Team HeartSound which competed for a coveted spot in the Global Finals. During the live streaming event, students enjoyed delicious popcorn and candy floss while they viewed the Imagine Cup SEA Finals. Our Microsoft Student Partners were also on-site to assist students with Office 365 installations and enquiries. When Team HeartSound came on stage at around 10:30am, the crowd cheered for their team and shouted words of encouragement which was broadcasted back to the audience in the Philippines. Congratulations to Team HeartSound from Nanyang Polytechnic for making it to the Southeast Asia Finals and we look forward to the results! Enjoy the rest of your trip! - Shawn Tjai On behalf of the Microsoft Imagine Cup Singapore Team

[ Vote For Your Favourite Team! ](https://aka.ms/icseavote) Join us here at the Imagine Cup Southeast Asia Finals livestream on Spiffy! Watch the full action starting from 24 April 2017, 9AM (GMT+8)! Live updates will be posted on our Facebook Page as well so be sure to stay tuned! Remember to VOTE for your favourite teams! The most-voted team will receive a special award - the People’s Choice Awards! Voting can be done through this link here or from the button above. Imagine Cup is a global competition that empowers the next generation of computer science students to team up and use their creativity, passion and knowledge of technology to create applications that shape how we live, work and play. Every year tens of thousands of students from across the globe compete for cash, travel and prizes and for the honor of taking home the Imagine Cup! At its 15th year anniversary, Imagine Cup is proud to partner with ASEAN Business Advisory Council and Philippine Airlines to host the first-ever Southeast Asia Regional Finals, in celebration of the 50th year anniversary of ASEAN. From APRIL 23 - 26, 2017, Ten national champions will be gathered from around the region to compete at this 4-day event for the honor to represent the region at the Worldwide Finals, and the chance to compete for cash, prizes, travel opportunities and the ultimate glory of taking home the Imagine Cup! ...

 As Singapore embraces a digital economy and looks towards achieving our vision of becoming a Smart Nation by 2025, at the centre of it all is our people. In our continuous effort to nurture a new generation of digitally fluent citizens with a computational thinking mindset through our Code for Change efforts, and aligning this with the newly announced Digital Readiness Programme Office within the Ministry of Communications and Information, Microsoft and the Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA) inked a Memorandum of Intent (MOI) to launch and collaborate on a 2-year Digital Maker Programme (DMP). The DMP was officially launched by Minister for Communications and Information, Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim, during his Ministry’s workplan seminar held at the Furama Riverfront Hotel on April 13, 2017. The DMP aims to increase STEM awareness and uptake in Singapore, nurture a new generation of digitally fluent citizens, imbued with a Computational Thinking mindset and giving people the ability to be digital creators and makers. This will allow Singapore to cultivate a community of innovators with the culture of collaboration, co-creation and empowered real-world problem solving using Microsoft’s technology. Over the next 2 years, the programme will introduce making and creating with technology using an entry-level codable microcontroller known as the micro:bit to inspire students and adults to explore the possibilities of digital making. The micro:bit was first launched in the United Kingdom (UK) to all Year 7/8 and S1 students in March 2016 (News reference here). To find out more about the programme, you can refer to the following featured news articles: ...

Top 3 resources for developing on Microsoft Azure Microsoft offers startups and students alot of resources to get started on Microsoft Azure. Ranging from the Microsoft BizSpark program which provides free Azure credits and product keys, there is also the Microsoft Imagine program for students to host websites and download software for free. Here are the top 3 resources which you can use in your journey with Microsoft Azure. Azure for Startups (Github) This repository on github contains an array of guides which startups can use to kick start their journey on Azure. There are tutorials and sample code to help startups migrate from other platforms to Azure, as well as the different possible services which Microsoft offers. Visit the Azure for Startups Github page here. ...

InfoCorp Technologies has established a partnership with Coin Sciences Ltd of UK to incorporate their private blockchain platform Multichain into our solutions. Find out more about the press release at https://lnkd.in/fvj9EKW Coin Sciences Ltd has recently announced a collaboration with Wolfram Research who owns the Mathematica language and Wolfram|Alpha answer engine. Multichain will be integrated into the Wolfram Language and allow Mathematica users to store and retrieve data in a zero-configuration private blockchain deployed in the Wolfram Cloud. It speaks a lot about Multichain’s maturity (no puns intended) as private blockchain platform to be integrated into one of the world’s oldest programming language. Coin Sciences has also partnered with Seal software, the market leading platform for contract discovery and analytics. In a recent survey by ZDNet, Multichain was also named by large corporations as one of the enabling products for faster digital change. To celebrate this joyous occasion, InfoCorp Technologies is organizing a two-days hands-on blockchain programming class to be conducted at Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) on the 20th and 21st of April to widen your blockchain exposure from a practitioner’s perspective. ...

Team HeartSound from Nanyang Polytechnic Crowned Champions at the Microsoft Imagine Cup Singapore 2017 Having demonstrated their idea to bring a better and more accurate pre-diagnosis solution to patients who experience abnormal heart rhythms, they will now be flying to Manila, Philippines to compete in the SEA Imagine Cup 2017. SINGAPORE, 10 April 2017 - Microsoft Singapore today crowned Team HeartSound from Nanyang Polytechnic as the Singapore champions of Microsoft Imagine Cup Singapore 2017. This year’s Imagine Cup saw over 65 project entries from the different tertiary institutions with solutions and applications ranging from virtual wardrobes, smart plant indoor growing and medical solutions to aid doctors. 2017 marks the 15th year which Imagine Cup has been running. Imagine Cup is an annual competition which inspires the youths of today to think out of the box and to develop solutions to solve problems on a world scale. As the winners of the Imagine Cup Singapore Finals, the team from Nanyang Polytechnic will be flying to Manila, Philippines at the end of this month to take part in the South East Asian Imagine Cup 2017 in collaboration with the 30th ASEAN Summit. Here are some words from the winning team! Team HeartSound - “Humility and good attitude played a huge part in our team’s success.” ...

One of the key challenges faced by startups has always been customer acquisition and one of Singapore’s leading EduTech startup, Miao Academy, was glad to share their own experience in acquiring 15,000 users without spending any marketing dollars in an exclusive “Microsoft Business Talk” session at NUS Enterprise Blk 71 on 7th April 2017. Miao Academy is an educational technology company specializing in machine learning and natural language processing. Their vision is to use technology to improve the learning effectiveness and efficiency of students, while at the same time lowering barriers to access. It aims to offer a simple, fast and cost-effective way to help students with specific academic problems. During the session, Betty and Ze Xuan from Miao Academy shared how they started from a simple prototype to 15,000 users for a beta product without spending any marketing dollars. They also shared about their interesting experiences and unique insights in the EduTech industry. Over 120 participants signed up for the event with a turnout of over 70 participants comprising of startups, developers, and industry professionals. The event was a hit with the community, and became one of the most well-attended session in this event series. At the end of the session, the audience connected with our team members and Miao Academy over light refreshments and discussed about potential future collaborations. Special thanks to Betty and Ze Xuan for taking time off from their busy schedules to present in our event. A big thank you to all event attendees and we are looking forward to seeing everyone at our upcoming events. You can review the presentation slides at: How do we achieve 15,000 users without spending marketing dollars.pdf To find out about Miao Academy and its product offering, please visit their official website at http://www.miao.academy/ Special thanks to NUS Enterprise Blk 71 for being our great event partner for “Microsoft Business Talk”. Check out our Spiffy Facebook Events to find out our upcoming activities in LaunchPad.

One of our BizSpark startups, Park N Parcel, was recently featured in The Straits Times feature. Park N Parcel is a Singapore based start-up offering an innovative last mile mailing service solution which provides shoppers with a convenient way to collect their online purchases in a hassle free manner by parking the parcels at various collection points which includes your neighbors, cafes, retail stores,convenience stores, and pharmacies. To find out about Park N Parcel and its product offering, please visit their official website at https://www.parknparcel.com.sg/ Check out The Straits Times feature at http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/firms-deliver-with-self-collection-option

After a long hiatus, “Microsoft Innovation Huddle” returns to BASH on 5th April where we explored advance analytics using the Cortana Intelligence Suite. This session coincides with the first release candidate of Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit version 2.0 available from 3rd April. (For more details, visit https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/machinelearning/2017/04/03/microsoft-updates-its-deep-learning-toolkit/) The community showed great support for our event with over 145 sign-ups and a turnout of over 80 participants comprising of startups, students, developers, and industry professionals. At the end of the session, the audience mingled over light refreshments, and connected with our team to find out more about the Cortana Intelligence Suite and their applications in real life scenarios. Special thanks to Alyssa for taking time off from her busy schedule to present in our event. A big thank you to all event attendees and we are looking forward to seeing everyone at our upcoming events. You can review the presentation slides at: Advanced Analytics Using Cortana Intelligence Suite Check out our Spiffy Facebook Events to find out our upcoming activities in LaunchPad. Special thanks to BASH and TAG.PASS for being our supporting event partners! Check out the latest news and events from BASH via Twitter @BASH_SGInnovate