Fifty six teams from 17 countries entered this global competition which began 10 months ago. The contestants included search engine enthusiasts plus several of the world's top laboratories.

The competition was held at the competition's sponsor and organizer, Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), which fosters world-class scientific research and talent.

According to the organizer, the other finalist teams included SHRC from Peking University, China; the Laboratoire d'Informatique de Grenoble in France; NII-KAORI/IRISA in Japan; and Team UIUC-YX, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA.

All five finalists had survived three increasingly difficult challenges that preceded the Grand Finals, and converged on Singapore for the competition, said the scientific agency.

Journey through a secret island