Microsoft photo

Captains from the Microsoft Imagine Cup Grants winning teams, Dominik Tomicevic from Croatia, Gerardo Francisco Pérez Layedra from Ecuador, Jason Wakizaka from the United States and Mohammad Azzam from Jordan meet with Bill Gates (right) and Microsoft Executive Vice President Brad Smith (left) at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting

A group of college students who developed a smartphone app that uses a snapshot of a blood sample to determine if it’s affected with malaria is one of the recipients of $75,000 from Microsoft's Imagine Cup Grants program.

Team LifeLens from the U.S. was one of four teams that won the grants. The team is comprised of students from University of California, Davis; Harvard Business School; University of Central Florida; and UCLA.

The LifeLens application runs on Windows Phone 7 software, It uses a high-resolution imaging sensor and a micro ball lens attachment, according to Microsoft.

Other Image Cup Grant recipients developed a "Kinect-based system for physical therapy, a real-time sign language translator for classrooms, and a device to bring independence to quadriplegics by enabling them to operate computers on their own," according to Microsoft.

Team captains participated in a roundtable with Bill Gates and Microsoft’s Brad Smith at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday.

The new grant program aims to help students “take their inventions for social change to market,” according to Microsoft.

The other grant winners are: Team Apptenders (Croatia), Team Falcon Dev (Ecuador) and Team OaSys (Jordan).