Abishek Kumarasubramanian, an Indian Institute of Technology-Madras student, has become an instant star amongst the techie community.

He will be working with Microsoft [ Images ] czar Bill Gates [ Images ] himself on futuristic technologies at the IT giant's Redmond headquarters for a year.

Microsoft Corporation India [ Images ] Pvt Ltd on Thursday announced that Abishek has been selected for a one-year internship with Bill Gates and will work directly with his technical assistants' team in the United States after winning the Microsoft Code4Bill contest.

The Microsoft tech team comprises the world's best technologists who formulate and drive Microsoft's technical strategy.

Abishek was selected after seven months of rigorous competition under an initiative named Code4Bill, which was announced by Bill Gates during his last visit to India.

Over 20,000 students registered for the contest, which included three online technical challenges, and two rounds of one-to-one interviews. The last of these nineteen students also interned with Microsoft India for a period of two months.

"Today technology touches the lives of billions of people around the world, and it's amazing to think that I will be working with Microsoft, where I have an opportunity impact each of these lives," Abishek Kumarasubramanian said in a Microsoft media release.

"Participating in Code4Bill has been an exhilarating experience. The competition has been tough and challenging and has provided me an insight into cutting edge product development and innovation. Even though it will take some time for me to completely believe that I have been chosen to work with Bill Gates himself, I think that this is an unmatched opportunity, and am really excited about it," he said, commenting on his win.

The final nineteen students who interned at Microsoft India are from India's from premier technical institutes including IIT-Madras [ Images ]; IIT-Roorkee; Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, New Delhi [ Images ]; and Army Institute of Technology, Pune.

During their internship, the students worked on next-generation technologies to develop solutions that address current day challenges -- an application developed

by Udayan Khurana from Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala that helps in the search for geographically-tagged information and a Web application developed by Pratik Stephen from Army Institute of Technology, Pune that builds on MSN Virtual Earth and allows users to zoom in and see minute details of a particular area.

"India is very clearly a global innovator in the field of IT, and the Indian student community has also made a significant contribution in this area. Through Code4Bill, we have met some of the most promising technologists in the world, and are looking forward to one of them joining us to infuse creativity and a fresh perspective into our future technology strategy," said Alexander Gounares, corporate vice president, corporate strategy, Microsoft.

Gounares has been the technical assistant to Bill Gates for three years, and was in Hyderabad to conduct the final round of selection.

In the first stage of the contest, participants were given three online technical challenges. The top 10 per cent based on the cumulative scores at the end of this round then moved to the next stage.

In stage two, the students underwent a round of one-to-one interviews with a technical interview panel. The next round required the nineteen selected students to intern with Microsoft Research, Bangalore and Microsoft India Development Centre, Hyderabad.

In the last round, the top five participants faced a series of challenges administered by Bill Gates' former technical assistant.

Code4Bill was initiated as recognition of India's leadership in nurturing world class technical talent and was aimed at pre-final and final year students pursuing various technical streams across India. India is the first country where students have got this opportunity.

The registrations for the contest opened in January 2006 and more than 24,000 students from remote locations like Guwahati, Dhanbad, and Warangal registered into it. Over the last seven months, the Code4Bill site (www.code4bill.com) has received more than 800,000 page views.

The Indian student developer community is of strategic importance in India's emergence as the world's IT capital, and Microsoft has a comprehensive programme to provide them access to next-generation technologies, build on their software skills, and showcase these to a global audience, the Microsoft statement said.

Besides Code4Bill, Microsoft runs a sustained University relations program, under which it partners with technical institutes and colleges, conducts the Academic Projects Program -- to help university students complete their annual projects, and hosts the Imagine Cup -- a premier global competition for technology students.