Today at the Social Innovation Summit in Silicon Valley, Microsoft announced the five winners of the second annual Imagine Cup Grant. We’re particularly excited as four of the winners developed their apps on Windows Azure.

Grant winners all participated in the Imagine Cup 2012 Worldwide Finals, a global competition that invites students to develop a technology and create a business plan while gaining a keen understanding of what they need to do to bring their concept to market. Winners will receive funding to jumpstart their projects into mainstream nonprofit and social enterprise opportunities.

We would like to congratulate the following winners for developing some truly inspiring technology powered on Windows Azure.

Check out the Microsoft News Center for more information on all the winners. 

Team Graphmasters, a German team formerly known as Greenway developed a navigation system that prevents traffic congestion and will potentially reduce CO2 emissions on the road. The project is called nunav and it proactively routes city traffic by calculating the best route for each individual car, communicating via a Windows Phone app. The team is using Windows Azure to help bring this system to market. Check out the team video for an in-depth explanation of how it works.

Team StethoCloud from Australia created a cloud-powered, mobile-hybrid stethoscope that will be used for early detection of pneumonia on Windows Azure. The team has already generated positive interest from the medical community, with partners already lining up to manufacture or use the product once available. Watch their video to learn exactly how this progressive technology will work.

Team Vivid is an Egypt-based team that is looking to help their country’s outdated healthcare system by giving providers an integrated platform with access to their patients’ electronic medical records. The team developed Health Buzz as a cost-effective, mobile-based solution that stores patients’ health records through a secure cloud-based storage system powered on Windows Azure. You can learn more about the service by checking out Team Vivid’s video.

Team Cipher256 from Uganda has developed a Windows Phone application that may help mitigate the extremely high maternal mortality rate that affects the sub Saharan region of Africa. Team Cipher256’s application, called WinSenga is a timely, affordable and effective way for healthcare workers to analyze an unborn child’s heartbeat to determine the heart rate, age and position of the fetus. From there, doctors can record the readings for further analysis on Windows Azure. Watch Team Cipher’s team video to learn more about WinSenga and how it works.