Team Nana Shilpa advances to Microsoft’s Imagine Cup World Championship in May

From left: Prabath Shalitha, Chamil Diluksha, Maheshani Makalanda and Kalpani Abeysinghe

Microsoft recently announced the top three teams of the 2022 Imagine Cup, which includes Team Nana Shilpa (Kalpani Abeysinghe, Chamil Diluksha, Maheshani Makalanda Maheshani and Prabath Shalitha) from Sri Lanka, the winner of the health category in Asia. 

Nana Shilpa is the first mobile application system developed for screening and refinement of dyscalculia and dysgraphia learning disabilities in primary school students using the Sinhala language, incorporating modern machine learning and deep 
learning techniques.

Team Nana Shilpa emerged as one of the top three to advance to the World Championships in May 2022 out of the tens of thousands of students from over 160 countries, who registered for the 2022 Imagine Cup, of which 48 teams advanced to the World Finals. The team is a product of the Sri Lanka Institute of Information 
Technology (SLIIT). 

Last week, the 48 teams had the opportunity to showcase their original tech innovations to World Finalist judges through a three-minute pitch and a question-and-answer session. Each of the solutions tackled a local or global issue in its competition category—Earth, Education, Healthcare or Lifestyle—and was assessed based on its use of Azure technology, accessibility and inclusion, marketability as a business idea and its potential for making an impact.

The expert judges had the unenviable task of determining 12 winners from these 48 worthy competitors. They reviewed and evaluated the diverse, innovative solutions and identified a winning team in each of the four categories within each region—Americas, Asia and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). These 12 teams are each awarded US $ 2500 cash and US $ 2500 in Azure credits and are undeniably winners in their own right, given their accomplishments in the 2022 Imagine Cup.

The top scoring team in each of the three regions wins an additional US $ 2500 cash and US $ 2500 in Azure credits and will now advance to the 2022 World Championship in May 2022 for the chance to win the grand prize of US $ 100,000 and a mentoring session with Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella.

The 2022 Imagine Cup is where passion meets innovation—a place where students can build together with like-minded peers around the world to make a difference. Over the past 20 years of the competition, students have created inspiring and inclusive projects using cutting-edge technologies while developing valuable skills during 
the journey.