Irvine, Calif. – UC Irvine Graduate Students Chidroop Iyyhappan, Lakshmi Vibhu Narke and Yogita Mallikarjun Pattan recently won the Microsoft Imagine Cup Epic Challenge 2023. Aditya Sreerama, a student at Duke, was also a member of the team.

Representing UCI, they were the only team in US region selected for this prestigious competition.

Their project Eupnea, is a complete package that provides Tuberculosis patients and healthcare providers with a low-cost solution to save lives and eradicate TB.

The 2023 Imagine Cup is all about global student innovators building together to make a difference with technology and developing their own skills along the way. Teams had the option of submitting their project to the Epic Challenge as an early step in their competition journey. The Epic Challenge is an opportunity for teams to receive preliminary feedback on their ideas from professional judges and have the chance to win a spot to directly advance to the World Finals round. 

To enter the challenge, teams submitted a 3-minute project pitch and proposal for an original technology solution developed in one of the 2023 Imagine Cup’s competition categories: Earth, Education, Health, or Lifestyle. Each Epic Challenge submission was judged, and a winner from each region was selected. These teams will each take home $1,000 to continue developing their projects, receive judge feedback, and advance to the Imagine Cup World Finals in May 2023!