Sign language software applauded

An Irish team of computer science students from NUI Maynooth has reached the final in the world's largest student software design competition, Microsoft's Imagine Cup, writes Karlin Lillingtonin Seoul

The team is one of six finalists competing for the €25,000 (€18,115) first prize at the competition in Seoul, South Korea.

The four Irish students - Cathal Coffey from Kildare, Daniel Kelly from Donegal, Mark Clerkin from Monaghan and Eric McClean from Meath - have also won the opportunity to participate in a two-week Microsoft and BT Innovation Accelerator programme to bring their project, a sign language teaching program, to market. "It's absolutely amazing, a life-changing experience," said team captain Cathal Coffey. "This is a gateway to people who can help us make our dreams a reality."

Competing against 55 international teams in the Imagine Cup finals the Irish team learned on Tuesday afternoon that they had made the cut to the semi-finalist roster of 12 teams.

At a dinner hosted by the mayor of Seoul on Wednesday, Microsoft announced that the students had made the second cut to the finalist list of six teams.

While the first-place team will take home $25,000, the second- and third-place teams will take home $15,000 and $10,000 respectively. This is the first year that Ireland has entered a team in the competition, which was launched by Microsoft in 2003 and includes competitions in programming, web development and the digital arts. The software design competition is the cup's centrepiece.

The Irish team's project, called Signal, uses innovative real-time motion capture techniques, a PC and a webcam to enable a computer user to learn sign language from an animated virtual teacher named Niamh.

"It's a major achievement and ratifies all the effort they've put in. It shows how unique their solution may be and the quality and innovative nature of it," said team mentor Tom Lysaght, a computer science lecturer at NUI Maynooth.

"We're incredibly proud that they're in the last six. We think that they have a really innovative language solution," said Liam Cronin, academic engagement manager, Microsoft Ireland.

Ireland has a second team competing in the Web Development portion of the cup, who arrived in Seoul as one of six finalist teams from an initial field of 400.

Marouf Azad and Mohammed Al-Tahs, computer science students at Dublin Institute of Technology, faced off against the other five finalists in a 24-hour round-the-clock programming marathon on Tuesday. A top prize of $8,000 is on offer.

The winners will be announced tomorrow at a gala event attended by several ambassadors, including Noreen O'Sullivan, Irish deputy ambassador to South Korea.