The government-funded Grid Computing Now network has announced the winners of a competition to find ways of solving environmental issues through grid computing.

Entries designed to improve traffic flow and produce a simulation of the ecosystem took the top spots.

The competition kicked off in July and was supported by Microsoft, Intellect, the British Computer Society (BCS), the National e-Science Centre, the WWF and the Technology Strategy Board.

The challenge was open to UK residents through two entry tracks, one professional and one non-professional, and entrants were judged on their project's feasibility, scope and creativity.

"Technology is all too often spoken about only in narrow and negative terms when it comes to the environment, with people focused on reducing its contribution to carbon emissions," said Jerry Fishenden, national technology officer at Microsoft UK.

"But we need to ensure that we do not lose sight of the bigger objective, which is how technology can enable us to rethink the way we learn, live, work and play in fundamental and radical ways.

"And that is the real lesson of this competition: how technology can indeed help us find a way of producing a greener planet."

The first prize for the non-professional track was awarded to Christos Melissidis, an MSc student from Cranfield University, who put forward the concept of using grid computing to create a virtual model of the ecosystem in order to solve environmental problems.

Melissidis's idea was to feed real-time data derived from various data sources, such as the weather channel, into the virtual ecosystem while measuring its response.

Nick Pringle, an IT consultant and part-time PhD student from Glamorgan University, won the professional track with a predictive traffic-flow model that involves enhancing existing GPS data by submitting individual route information to a grid computing system.

The system would calculate a journey time based on how many other people chose to take the same route at the same time, potentially reducing the time spent in traffic jams and therefore cutting carbon emissions.

"Over the past year we have seen tremendous growth in the number and scope of grid computing solutions," said Ian Osborne, director of Grid Computing Now. " The winners of this competition have demonstrated the immense potential for grid computing to help solve, or monitor, environmental issues."

Both winners have been appointed an industry mentor, Dr David Wallom, technical manager at the University of Oxford, to help them progress their ideas.

They have also won a free one-year membership to the BCS and a week-long apprenticeship at the National e-Science Centre at the University of Edinburgh.

Pringle also received a Sony Vaio laptop and Melissidis an Xbox 360 Elite.