Appy days! Exeter deletes opponents in Microsoft Cup

Exeter tech-heads are off to Russia to compete for £50,000 after winning a national app-design competition.

The students came first in the UK heat of the Microsoft Imagine Cup, which sees uni teams develop apps from scratch. They go to St Petersburg in Russia for the world final in May.

The team developed soundSYNK, an app which synchronises music across mobile devices.

SoundSYNK: Robert Parker, Edward Noel, Alexander Bochenski and Jonathan Neumann

If you’re playing music from your phone, you can use soundSYNK to broadcast the same music from your friends’ phones. This creates a surround sound effect without the need for external speakers.

The app came out of a ‘hackathon’ run by Setsquared, a partnership of British universities which supports students’ business ideas.

Team this with The Tab’s playlist and you’ve got yourself a party

Edward Noel, second year mechanical engineering student and soundSYNK teammember, said: “We are absolutely ecstatic. Representing the UK is an honour and we are going to do everything we can to win in Russia.”

SoundSYNK has already secured a £10,000 grant from Creative England to further develop the app.

SETsquared’s partnership director, Graham Harrison, said: “We had great belief in SoundSYNK from the outset. They had a great idea and, with our guidance, have turned it into what could be potentially a highly-profitable business with a sustainable future.

It was a one-two for our uni at the UK final in London, as second-placed team Ticklo also hailed from Exeter.

The Guild’s Tracy Costello said: “This success is a testimony to the entrepreneurship, commitment and talent of our students, and the quality of their support mechanisms.”