School students older than 16 are eligible to participate in the competition. The first round will be held from the 7th of March till the 15th of April. The final round will be arranged in Tbilisi on the 28th of April. The finalist team on a regional level will travel to Sydney, Australia, next July to compete at the Imagine Cup 2012 Worldwide Finals.  If the team wins, it will receive a cash prize ($25 000).

Today, the Minister, Dimitri Shashkini, Mission Director for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) programs in Georgia, Stephen Haykin, Microsoft Central and Eastern European Markets General Manager, Veronica Prikrilova and Micrsofot Georgia General Manager, David Asatiani, announced Georgia’s participation in the competition at a joint briefing held at the MES.
 
The competition is supported in part by USAID’s Economic Prosperity Initiative (EPI), which assists public and private actors to boost competitiveness in certain sectors of the Georgian economy, including the information and communications technologies (ICT) sector.

EPI will also support the winner of the Georgia competition to attend the international finals in Australia in July 2012. Microsoft’s annual Imagine Cup student competition focuses on increasing knowledge around specific technology, and on developing innovative solutions to real problems.

USAID has supported Georgia with 15 million dollars during the last twenty years. It implements 40 different projects in Georgia that are aimed at improving economic competitiveness and welfare of the nation, as well as delivering social services and strengthening democracy and governance. For more information visit http://georgia.usaid.gov.