Members of the Northern Caribbean University (NCU) Microsoft Imagine Cup Software team who left the island on Wednesday for Cairo, Egypt, to compete in the world finals have received scholarships totalling $974,600.

The scholarships, each valued at $243,650, were presented to them recently by NCU President Dr Herbert Thompson.

"Even with the current financial challenges facing the world and the university, NCU's administration considered the scholarships to the team members as a token of the university's appreciation of your achievement," said Thompson during the presentation.

Team commended

He commended the team and their coaches on advancing to the finals once again in this, the fifth year NCU has entered the competition. This is the third time a team from the school is advancing to the world finals.

The scholarships represent the full tuition for each member's final year of study at NCU.

The members of Team Left Clik, Shawn McLean, Trevoir Williams, Dwayne Samuels, and Derron Brown, hail from the department of computer and information sciences in the College of Natural and Applied Sciences at NCU.

They are coached by Henry Osborne, technical specialist within the department.

Team Left Clik's challenge in the 2009 staging of the Imagine Cup falls in the software development category under the theme 'Imagine a World Where Technology Helps Solve the Toughest Problems Facing us Today'.

Development programme

The Imagine Cup is Microsoft's premier student development programme which challenges students to imagine a better world enabled by their own genius, creativity and energy, and provides opportunities for participation in the future of technology, software and computing.

Since its inception in 2003, the Imagine Cup has travelled the world from Spain to Brazil, from Japan to India and from South Korea to France.

It has grown from having one category, software design, to nine categories in which students can compete.

The current categories include software design, embedded development, game development, robotics and algorithms, IT Challenge, mashup, photography, short film, and design.