Thursday, September 26, 2013

Round Up of Student Technology Competitions 2013

I’ve written about a number of technology competitions and award programs for students in the last month or so. I thought that a single post on them might be useful. So here we go.

ncwit aic logoThe NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing program. This program recognizes high school young women for their interest and aptitude in technology.  Aspirations in Computing currently offers over 300K in scholarships for young women in computing. You can learn more at aspirations.org.

ImagineCupLogoWhite
The Imagine Cup is Microsoft’s big international competition and challenges for students. The three main competitions are back for 2014: Games, Innovation, and World Citizenship. And once again the prizes are substantial: $50,000 to the first-place team in each competition! All of the rules for 2014 are available now and there are a lot of changes, so please take a look.

American Computer Science League (ACSL)

 ACSL organizes computer science contests and computer programming contests for junior and senior high school students. This year, our 36th year of continuous operation, over 200 teams in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia are participating. ACSL is on the approved activities list of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP). ACSL is also an institutional member of the Computer Science Teachers Association.

ibm  The 2013 IBM Master the Mainframe Contest is now open!  This year, the IBM Academic Initiative System z team is giving away over $53,000 in prizes, including Google Nexus 10 tablets, expenses-paid trips, custom T-shirts, and a ton of swag! Plus, tons of great technical challenges to give your students hands-on experience and sought-after skills.  Students who complete the first two parts of the contest will gain hands-on experience with four different operating systems!

Verizon App Challenge
Specifically focusing on middle school and high school-age participants, the Verizon Innovative App Challenge, which launched in 2012, is a collaborative competition created to encourage students’ interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). 
This second Verizon Innovative App Challenge, which offers up to $20,000 grants for winning schools and a Samsung Galaxy Tab for each winning team member, has also been designed to engage students, provide them with valuable new skills and experiences and open their eyes to exciting new possibilities in STEM for their futures.

Spirit of Inovation logoThe Spirit of Innovation Challenge is an excellent way to help your students channel their creative thinking and demonstrate their knowledge. The annual program is a multi-phase, business and technical plan competition, free and open to students ages 13 - 18 from around the world. The program invites teens to work in teams of 2-5 students and use science, technology, engineering and math skills along with creativity, collaboration and entrepreneurship to develop innovative products and services to benefit humanity and address global sustainability.
I blogged about them individually here:


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