Imagine Cup is an annual competition sponsored and hosted by Microsoft Corp. which brings together student developers worldwide to help resolve some of the world's toughest challenges. It is considered as "Olympics of Technology" by computer science and engineering and is considered one of the top competitions and awards related to technology and software design.
All Imagine Cup competitors create projects that address the Imagine Cup theme: "Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems". Started in 2003, it has steadily grown in size, with more than 358,000 competitors representing 183 countries and regions in 2011. The Imagine Cup worldwide finals have been held all over the globe. The Imagine Cup 2017 worldwide Finals was held in Seattle, United States.
We created a product Spot - introducing Augmented Reality to Grocery Shopping. Consider a situation where Jack and his 7 year old daughter Ellen are travelling to China. After a tiring day they enter a super mart to buy something only to realise that all products have information written in Mandarin. Ellen had already been hospitalised twice because of her allergy to nuts. Spot accepts Ellen's health profile and allows her father to choose products that suit his daughter's health. Spot allows you to compare multiple products live in Augmented Reality. Just use your phone, tap on the products, select the filters recommended based on your health profile and see the filtered choices in Augmented Reality.
Every year more than a million people get affected by allergic reactions like anaphylaxis - they consume foods that lead to harmful reactions and life threatening medical emergencies. If a person chooses a filter that is harmful for his consumption, Spot will instantly warn him about his choices. This is because of the information gap between a product and it's consumer. Our aim is to eradicate this information gap.
Majority of our day to day ordinary purchasing is done offline. Online grocery stores allow us to compare products in parallel, a feature unavailable to offline grocery shopping. We look forward to collaborate with companies and food markets to make their products AR-Ready. By making their products AR Ready, food manufacturers can give stronger incentives to customers to choose their products and increase their sales.
It’s simple but highly effective because it promotes choices that fit your health and works offline. We’ve used Azure’s CustomVision AI to build an image recognition model. Using Python App Service, the database of products is hosted on Azure Cosmos DB. The boundaries between the real and virtual worlds are slowly dissolving and we aim to introduce a new dimension to the world of offline grocery shopping. This provides an advantage to both the consumer and the manufacturer. Being AR Ready can boost the sales of a product and bridging the information gap promotes the user to make healthier choices.
