Two Yalies made it to the final round of Microsoft’s US Imagine Cup 2010, an annual competition that awards prizes to young people for their technological innovations.

Chris Riederer ’10 and Henry Corrigan-Gibbs ’10 won first prize (the second spot, behind the grand prize) in the game design category of the competition for their work building an interactive computer simulation game called “Alterra,” which allows users to make decisions on global development issues and humanitarian intervention efforts. The project was part of this year’s theme for the Imagine Cup, “imagine how software can change the world.”

Riederer and Corrigan-Gibbs (a former director of online initiatives for the News) are both computer science majors in Saybrook College. Their Imagine Cup team is called “Coffee-Powered Altruism.”

To read more about Riederer and Corrigan-Gibbs’ win in the competition, check out the Imagine Cup 2010 website.