Students from 109 countries to compete for $50,000 Microsoft Imagine Cup winning prize

One hundred student teams from 109 countries are expected to compete for $50,000, $10,000 and $5,000 awards at the Microsoft Imagine Cup finals right after the 2013 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2013).

For the last three years Microsoft has trained thousands of Russians in computer literacy (which is increasingly significant as the country’s internet usage rate skyrocketed past 50 percent last year), within a deal that was reached at the SPIEF. Free training is available under the programme The Your Course at the St. Petersburg University of IT, Mechanics and Optics.
The company also added the St. Petersburg Ingria Technopark to its BizSpark program, offering free startup software and development instruments to the park’s hi-tech residents.

At last year’s SPIEF, Microsoft announced a bilateral agreement with the St. Petersburg Pre-Seed Investment Fund, which envisaged a simplified selection procedure for recipients of Microsoft Seed Fund grants, which has so far invested about $1 million into 17 projects.