Microsoft has announced the inaugural winners of a new, $3 million contest to encourage student technology and social entrerprenurs who include a team responsible for a mobile phone app that diagnoses malaria and enables monitoring groups to track the spread of the disease. Team Lifelens is from the US and has developed an app that runs on Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS. The winners of  Users photograph a blood sample that has been stained and then analyse it using the Lifelens app (along with a magnifying lens) for signs of malaria. Results can be uploaded so that the extent of the disease's spread can be monitored. Microsoft’s first Imagine Cup Grants were announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The other winners are Team Apptenders from Croatia which used Microsoft’s Kinect for on-premise and remote physical therapy for children called KiDnect, Ecuador’s Team Falcon Dev which developed a product called Skillbox that is designed to be an affordable solution for children with impaired hearing and Team OaSys from Jordan who created  a system that allows people without hands or arms to use a mobile phone or computer thanks to a combination of hardware and software innovation.