The Imagine Cup 2012 Worldwide Finals have recently taken place in Sydney, Australia and Microsoft has announced the winners.

Team quadSquad from the Ukraine took home a $25,000 prize and the Imagine Cup trophy for its project, Enable Talk, which allows deaf individuals to communicate verbally using custom-designed sensory gloves and a smartphone app to translate sign language gestures into speech in real time.

More than 350 students from 75 countries competed over five days in a variety of competitions while working together to tackle the world’s toughest problems through technology and showcased gadgets, software and games featuring innovative uses of Windows Phone, Kinect for Xbox 360, Windows 8, Windows Azure and other Microsoft technologies.

In the 10 years since the competition began. more than 1.65 million students have participated in the competition with projects that combat hunger, support environmental sustainability, foster accessibility and provide new ways for students to learn, just to name a few.

Participating in Imagine Cup is increasingly becoming a tradition for many students, and in some cases, multiple family members have entered the competition. This year, two brothers from Brazil took three first place honors in the Windows Azure Challenge, the Windows 8 Challenge and the Kinect Fun Labs Challenge. Roberto and Eduardo Sonnino have, between them participated in a combined eight Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals. Eduardo said:

“We started when Roberto was in his last year of high school and I was in my first year. We’ve pretty much grown up with Imagine Cup in our lives. We’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned to manage projects, we’ve learned to develop in short time constraints and deal with really short deadlines, we’ve worked with the newest technology that hasn’t been released yet, and we’ve managed bugs.”

Full list of winners

Software Design

• First Place: quadSquad (Ukraine)
• Second Place: Coccolo (Japan)
• Third Place: wi-GO (Portugal)

Game Design: Phone 

• First Place: Drexel Dragons (United States)
• Second Place: Ecosia (France)
• Third Place: Turtle Games (Hungary)

Game Design: Xbox/Windows 

• First Place: TANG Thai (Thailand)
• Second Place: The Doers (Brazil)
• Third Place: Hotfix (Belgium)

IT Challenge 

• First Place: Alexandru Ticlea (Romania)
• Second Place: Sherif Talaat (Egypt)
• Third Place: Joshua Sim (Singapore)

Kinect Fun Labs Challenge – Sponsored by Microsoft Studios 

• First Place: Team Interlab (Brazil)
• Second Place: Team Whiteboard Pirates (US)
• Third Place: Team Flexifly (Poland)

Windows Azure Challenge 

• First Place: Virtual Dreams Azure (Brazil)
• Second Place: Complex (Romania)
• Third Place: The Klein Team (Algeria)

Windows Metro Style App Challenge – Sponsored by Windows 

• First Place: Virtual Dreams Metro (Brazil)
• Second Place: nLife (Ukraine)
• Third Place: TokTok (Korea)

 Windows Phone Challenge – Sponsored by Nokia 

• First Place: Vivid (Egypt)
• Second Place: The Stack (Poland)
• Third Place: Aaltovation (Finland)

People’s Choice Award sponsored by Bing

• Team D Labs (India)

Environmental Sustainability Award sponsored by Coca-Cola

• Team Greenway (Germany)

Health Awareness Award sponsored by Coca-Cola

• Italian Ingenium Team (Italy)

Next year student competitors will head to St. Petersburg, Russia, for the Imagine Cup 2013 Worldwide Finals.