Islamabad: To recognise meritorious efforts of its winning team at Microsoft Imagine Cup, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) held an award giving ceremony at its main campus here on Monday. NUST Rector Engineer Muhammad Asghar graced the occasion as the chief guest.

Cash award of Rs5000 was given to each member of the winning team namely Celoks comprising Qasim Ikram, Salman Mazhar, Usman Bin Wahid and Muhammad Azeem from NUST School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The team's project SEED was about donating leftover food to the needy through Windows Phone Application.

As many as 11,000 students from different universities of Pakistan actively participated in the contest. It was the first time in the history of this competition that a team from NUST had won the national final of Microsoft Imagine Cup and was to represent Pakistan at worldwide finals. Marking its tenth year, Microsoft is now going to hold the Worldwide Finals of the Imagine Cup in Sydney, Australia early July.

SEECS principal speaking to the audience, highlighted the collaboration between Microsoft and NUST over past few years by explicating how it had been nourished to bring mutual assistance for greater benefits of students.

While speaking at the occasion, NUST Rector Engineer Muhammad Asghar commended the remarkable performance of the winning team. He also paid a rich tribute to Shabbir Khan, the faculty advisor for the team Celoks, for altruistic endeavours and continuous support he offered for the team. NUST rector cajoled the team members into making a result-oriented as well as a compatible plan with NUST Community Service towards poverty alleviation. He urged the winning team to further maintain the tempo and bring international acclaim to NUST by winning the worldwide finals to be held in Australia. Engineer Muhammad Asghar stressed that universities should realise their responsibilities towards building knowledge-based economy.

Microsoft Imagine is the world's premier student technology competition that aims at bringing together the young technologists from across the globe who come up with projects/solutions helpful in resolving both the present and impending challenges of unprecedented nature.