UK uni wins global dev competition

Students from Bournemouth University have come third in what is said to be the “world’s biggest student technology competition”, scooping $5000 in the process.

The Microsoft-endorsed Imagine Cup saw some 100,000 teams apply from around the world, according to event organisers. 



That number was whittled down to 140 teams (around 450 students) selected for the worldwide finals held in Cairo, Egypt.

The design brief for the competition was to create “an inspirational and educational” video game to address and reflect the United Nations Millennium Development Goals – eight international objectives for reducing extreme poverty, child mortality rates and disease epidemics. (Nearly 200 UN states have signed up for the programme and have agreed to achieve such milestones by 2015.)

With that design brief in place, a team of four students and one lecturer at Bournemouth University had together formed dev group Sanguine Labs. 

The group designed a game called Defile of Eden, based on the basic theme that there are two types of people in the world; those who care for the earth and those who damage it. 



“We focused on that in a multi-player format and pushed the concept within the gaming environment,” said group member Daniel Lisle, “to show that how you treat the planet can have a real effect.”

Lisle is joined by Stephen Marks, Paul Grattage and Karsten Pedersen, all under the mentorship of Dr Cornelius Ncube at Bournemouth’s School of Design, Engineering & Computing.

The Bournemouth team were awarded third place in their category, giving the group excellent business contacts, awards, cash and confidence.