Four students from Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Patna, have bagged Imagine Cup 2012 at the national level and would represent India at the world competition in Sydney, Australia, in July.

D Labs, a four-member team comprising Devesh Kumar, Amit Kumar Sharma, Abhishek Kumar and Dipali Sinha, won the contest on Wednesday. Software giant Microsoft had organised the contest in Gurgaon, Haryana.

The BIT team won over their competitors for their software design that aims at changing and enhancing the learning abilities of dyslexic school children. They won a cash prize of Rs 80,000. The D Labs also won the accessibility award.

The software developed by D Labs works on computers to provide a fun learning environment by collecting minute details to orient the applications according to the needs of students suffering from dyslexia. The application assesses the depth of the children with the use of a camera, after which it helps to solve their orientation problems.

Apart from D Labs, six more teams had qualified for the final round of the software design competition.

Mark D’Souza, director, student programme of Microsoft India and the chief organiser of the competition, told The Telegraph over phone from New Delhi that Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition. The winning team at the international level would be awarded US $25,000.

Thrilled about winning in two categories, software design and accessibility award, a representative from D Labs, said: “We are incredibly excited at the victory. It is great to be part of something like the Imagine Cup. Now we will get a chance to represent India at the worldwide final. We hope our project does well there too. But either way we will cherish the experience for a lifetime.”

On their software, the representative said: “When dyslexic children use the application, it would record and calculate the reaction time of the children. Based on the reaction time, it would orient the games or applications suiting them.”

In its 10th year, the Imagine Cup saw over 50,000 students from colleges across India register in eight categories of the competition this year. D’Souza said Imagine Cup is a year-long activity open to students across the globe. The competition begins with local, regional and online contests, followed by a screening of the best projects from each country.

“This year’s competition challenged the students to help solve one of the many tough problems that the world is facing today, like those identified by the United Nations in its millennium development goals, eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and ensuring environment sustainability,” D’Souza added.