Moments ago, it was announced on stage that quadSquad, a Ukrainian team, took first place in the Software Design project at the 10th annual Imagine Cup world-wide finals in Sydney, Australia. You can see a full list of winners here.

quadSquad enables deaf individuals to communicate verbally using a custom-designed sensory glove, and a smartphone application that translates sign language into speech.

Each first, second, and third place team also won cash prizes, totally approximately $175,000, across eight competition categories. Team quadSquad, with their first place victory, took home $25,000.

A big question surrounding Imagine Cup is life after the competition, and Microsoft has done a great job in making sure all competitors know about the Imagine Cup Grants, a three-year, $3 million by Microsoft to help take a lot of their ideas from Imagine Cup, and turn them into real businesses. Along with the grants, and BizSpark, Microsoft is making a huge push into really helping these young developers, which is awesome.

Over the 10 years that the Imagine Cup has been around, more than 1.6 million students have participated in the competition. Nearly 20% of the finalists are women, with three all-women teams competing in the Softare Design category.

Next years Imagine Cup is set to be held in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Dates haven’t been announced yet, but we’ll do our best to provide coverage of the competition!

A huge congratulations to all the teams that participated, and we look forward to seeing what comes out of Imagine Cup next year!