(L-R) Mark, Luke and Jimmy Dickinson play one of their MultiPoint mini-games

Microsoft researchers created the technology known as MultiPoint to help students in developing nations make the most of scarce PCs, letting them work together using multiple mice on a single computer.

Brothers Jimmy, Mark and Luke Dickinson are from Tigard, Ore., but they're big MultiPoint fans, too -- which makes sense, considering that they grew up in a family of 13 children.

The Dickinson brothers used MultiPoint as the underlying technology to create a collection of educational mini-games for Microsoft's Imagine Cup student technology competition. Their project took the top award in the U.S. Imagine Cup 2009 software design category in May.

That earned them the right to compete for the international prize next month at the worldwide Imagine Cup finals in Cairo. Winning there would be no small feat. Microsoft says Imagine Cup, which started in 2002, this year drew more than 300,000 contestants from 100 countries. Apart from prestige, the first-place prize in the international software design category is $25,000.

MultiPoint puts multiple cursors on the PC screen when users plug in multiple mice -- assigning one cursor to each mouse. Normally people using several mice on a single machine would be struggling for control of a single cursor. MultiPoint is meant to open up the experience to more collaboration and competition.

"Growing up in a large family, I rarely played single-player games, and if I did, I played with my brother right next to me -- we'd trade off," said Jimmy Dickinson, 28, a graduate student at Georgia State University. "I personally don't like single-player games. (MultiPoint) is so simple as a multi-player game. It just opened doors to some pretty creative ideas."

TechFlash caught up with the brothers last week on Microsoft's Redmond campus, where they were spending time with -- and getting advice from -- a team from Mumbai University whose "Enpower" power-management technologies won a first-place interoperability award in last year's Imagine Cup finals in Paris.

That team is now working to turn its project into a business.

Imagine Cup is "not just a technology competition, it's this whole melting pot of cultures," said Noel Sequeira, one of the Mumbai University students. "That's amazing, the contacts, the friends that you take back from the competition when you go back home. And it's fiercely competitive. There are teams with amazing solutions out there."

Among other pieces of wisdom, the Mumbai University team advised the Dickinsons to present a comprehensive picture to the Imagine Cup judges, including how the technology could be rolled out.

The theme of this year's Imagine Cup is using technology to solve some of the world's toughest problems, as outlined in the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals.

Those goals include universal education, which is where MultiPoint comes in. The technology emerged from Microsoft Research's India lab, as researchers looked for ways to make computers more effective in schools with a limited number of PCs serving many students.

"We found that, under certain circumstances, students would learn just as much with five children to a PC, and MultiPoint, as with one student getting a single PC entirely to themselves," said Kentaro Toyama of Microsoft Research, one of the creators of the technology. "The key condition was that you had to set up the game so that children would be forced to collaborate rather than compete."

The programs developed by the Dickinson brothers do include some collaborative aspects, with one requiring students to work together to properly arrange different-colored objects on the screen. But others are more competitive, such as a racing game that asks students questions and moves their character forward faster if they click the right answer.

The programs also include tools for teachers to customize the content inside the games, and measure student performance.

Jimmy, who is working toward a master's degree in information systems, acknowledged that he could have collaborated with some fellow Georgia State students on the project, but it made more sense to form a team with his brothers, given how well they know each other. Mark, 22, is studying computer science at Portland Community College. Luke, 18, just graduated from Tigard High School.

With Jimmy in Georgia and Mark and Luke in Oregon, they worked together using email, phone and online collaboration tools.

"I was just checking emails -- I got 350 from Jimmy the last couple months about Imagine Cup," Luke said.

"They're probably sick of me calling 'em," Jimmy said.

"A phone call about every day," Mark agreed, teasing his older brother.

Soon, they'll find out if all that work will land them the big prize. Overall, Imagine Cup offers $288,000 in prizes across nine categories and seven achievement awards. The Imagine Cup finals will be held July 3-7, with winners scheduled to be announced 30 days afterward.