Datacom is pleased to announce Rhea Babbar as the winner of this year’s Datacom Imagine Cup Scholarship.

Babbar will have the opportunity to put her skills to the test and gain practical, real-world experience within New Zealand’s leading IT organisation. The scholarship offers Babbar a paid six month internship working in Datacom’s Microsoft Solutions team in Auckland.

“We’ve been running this competition for several years now and this year, as always, we are impressed by the calibre of the applicants,” says Datacom NZ CEO Greg Davidson.

“Microsoft Imagine Cup is a great initiative that lets students realise their creative ideas and encourages world-class IT talent.”

Babbar is studying a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Auckland.

Babbar’s Imagine Cup team produced an app called aFOODable. The solution aims to create a three-way connection between donors, charities and supermarkets. Donors can donate food while they are grocery shopping, and charities can reduce the amount of money they spend on buying food items.

“I am extremely thankful to Datacom for giving me this opportunity and very excited to be part of the company,” says Babbar.

“The journey I took to get to this point has been a rigorous test of my character with a steep learning curve. To be awarded this scholarship means a lot to me after the hard work I have put in.”

Datacom has offered this scholarship for the last five years and every year Datacom hires a large number of graduating students into permanent roles with around 70 graduates joining the software division alone in the past two years.

About Microsoft Imagine Cup:

Imagine Cup is the world’s premier student technology competition. Students compete in teams of up to four people in the Games, Innovation or World Citizenship competitions to create an original technology project from start to finish. The teams create an idea, make a plan, build the project and then compete, giving them the opportunity to learn how to launch their business and bring ideas to market.

Now in its 13th year, Imagine Cup inspires students around the world to innovate across all of Microsoft’s technology platforms. Microsoft worldwide student competition is a truly global competition with around 16,900 students in 11,700 teams submitting 7,500 projects worldwide. This year there were 45 entries in New Zealand from across the country.