Among the projects are cloud application to help older generations leave an online legacy and MEEP, an interactive platform for users to see their friends in real time on a map and visualise how far they are from that meet-up location and recommended places to meet.

Fourteen finalists are competing for three awards in the New Zealand contest: World Citizenship, Innovation and Games. This year the three winning teams will undergo an online challenge to secure a place in the world finals. The challenge will pit them against 33 other teams across Asia Pacific.

Among the other projects on show today are:

DECIM, a medical monitoring tool that measures heart rate and breathing rate via a Kinect sensor. Data can then be monitored remotely and is analysed to detect changes such as a drop in heart rate;

Class quest, designed to improve school attendance through positive reinforcement and gamification;

Foresight, for real-time detection of human presence – to give instant notification when poachers are present;

Ohiti: a network of sensors that monitor traps in the forest to help out our endangered species;

Unitec’s system to answer student queries with a search engine interface;

Astraeus, a purpose built study environment integrated with Facebook;

Pro-Enunciate: an application to help non-native English speakers improve pronunciation;

Kizuna – An indie game based on Japanese folklore;

and Buzzle – an educational puzzle game that teaches users about art history.