Microsoft’s Imagine Cup student technology competition has grown into a massive event in less than a decade of existence, with hundreds of thousands of students participating this year. Four hundred of them are in New York City for the worldwide finals, starting today.

The challenge is to use technology to solve some of the world’s biggest problems, as represented by the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.

We sawa few of the projects in April at the U.S. Imagine Cup Finals in Redmond, including a note-taking application for visually impaired students that won the U.S. leg of the competition.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appeared on CNN this morning with some of the students in the video above. The winning team is slated to be announced next Wednesday. Check out the Imagine Cup Finals projects and vote for the People’s Choice Award on this page.

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