Event: Student Reviews Contest- NetBeans 6.1 and OpenSolaris OS (Website)

Organized By: Sun Microsystems Inc.

Key Dates:
Contest Begins: May 5, 2008
Deadline for Contest: June 6, 2008
Judging Period: June 7- June 20, 2008
Winner’s announced: June 25, 2008

About NetBeans 6.1 and OpenSolaris OS:
OpenSolaris is a full-featured OS with compelling software features such as ZFS, Dynamic Tracing (DTrace), Predictive Self-Healing and Solaris Containers, and it is built to give student developers like you a risk-free platform to quickly build, test, troubleshoot and deploy your innovations.

NetBeans is an IDE supporting whole loads of languages namely Java SE, Web & Java EE, Mobile Platform, UML, SOA, Ruby, C/C++ and servers namely GlassFish V2 UR2 and Apache Tomcat 6.0.16. In the latest 6.1 release, the award-winning NetBeans IDE has cool new features for developing AJAX web applications using JavaScript technology and delivers tighter integration with MySQL database.

Download OpenSolaris OS here
Download NetBeans IDE 6.1 here

About the Contest:
Post a review on your experience in using OpenSolaris OS and/or NerBeans IDE 6.1 and register the link of the written review here. Sun Microsystem’s judges will review all the submissions and select the winners.

The contest will have two groups: one for students who are not Sun Campus Ambassadors, and another comprising Sun Campus Ambassadors. For each group, there will be a grand prize of $250 in Visa Debit Card, and 5 second prizes of $100 each in Visa Debit Card.

How to Enter:
Post a review describing your experience using the new OpenSolaris OS or NetBeans IDE 6.1, install, reliability, performance, manageability, ease of use, new features, a tutorial, insight, tech tip, code sample, request for enhancements, etc. Your review must include a link to the Student Reviews Contest site. The review can be posted as a blog entry. Entries must be new material and not copied from something already written.

Complete the submission form here.
For Review tips here.
For Contest rules here

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Event: FTF Design Challenge - India (Website)

Organised By: Freescale Technology Forum.

Key Dates:
Challenege Registration Opens: April 14, 2008
Deadline for Submiting Design paper: June 27, 2008
Challenge duration: April 14, 2008 to November 14, 2008

For Whom:
Challenge is open to all persons 18 years or older as of April 14 who are residents of India

The challenge? Design a product that benefits the environment. For the first time, each Freescale Technology Forum in 2008 has a design challenge. Enter the FTF India challenge. If your design is selected, you win $10,000 USD and an all-expenses-paid trip to present your design to peers at FTF. Additional prizes will be awarded throughout the challenge.

Participants in the Challenge will compete by developing an application that is intended for use with one or a combination of Freescale product families and designed for an end-customer environmentally beneficial product.

The Challenge consisits of 3 rounds. More Details here

Homepage for Design Challenge, India here.
FAQ’s regarding the Challenge here
Challenge- India Rules and Eligibility here.

Note: All eligible entries must use one or more of the Freescale products.

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Event: Barcamp Delhi ( Website)

Key Dates:
Date of the event : 10th May 2008

BarCamp Delhi is proposed to be a camp where we get together and discuss/rant/brain-storm/share opinions about about Web technologies & trends, Mobile Internet, Hacking, Blogging, Vlogs, Social Media, … everything about the Technology that interests us. As said before, “It’s about geekery and having a focal point for great ideas.”

Keep visiting the Website for changes on Venue and Date of the Event

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Resource For Student Engineers: endINdia.net (Homepage)

About:
engINdia.net is an online resource for student engineers. This site is a resource for numerous projects targetting challenges that face people in rural India.

engINdia exists to promote appropriate and sustainable engineering solutions in developing areas. The organization focuses on Pabal, Maharashtra, a rural village in India located 80 miles east of Mumbai. Pabal is home to Vigyan Ashram, an educational institution that focuses on rural technologies. The existence of Vigyan Ashram and Pabal’s proximity to Mumbai made it the perfect starting point for engINdia.

The Design Challenges posted on the site are project ideas created by the villagers of Pabal. The solution to each Challenge will alleviate a technological need in Pabal and help to increase the quality of life for the villagers.

Beginning of engINdia:
engINdia is a partnership between 6 students from the University of Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB). An expedition was conducted during the summer of 2005 to the area of Pabal, Maharastra. There, the engINdia team worked with Vigyan Ashram and the local community to gain an understanding and appreciation of the development issues faced by rural India which could be tackled through engineering.

During the expedition the team surveyed the attitudes of the local community and the rural technology available to the reigon. The team witnessed emerging, successful and unsuccessful development projects while conducting its own research.

The expedition was approved and partly funded by the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) and officially recognized by Cambridge University.

Contributions of engINdia:

• a resource for students who are looking for research projects that combine engineering and sustainable international development
• a communication forum for students worldwide and a rural Indian community
• a way for students and villagers to share information and opinions about engineering and sustainable development
• a gateway for anyone to learn about the culture of rural India

Being Part of engINdia:
The following are some ways that one can help engINdia grow their international efforts:
1. work on a design challenge
2. donate your knowledge
3. Start Your Own Expedition
4. Donate your time
5. Make a monetary donation
6. Subscribe to their newsletter

Visit their Homepage for more details on Design Challenges and also plethora of resources.

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When was the last time you knew of a great opportunity - only too late? Based on an idea presented at London Business School, Let Me Know is a effort to make students aware of opportunities. Breaking the information barrier, finally.

In November 2007, a pilot of Let Me Know was launched at http://letmeknow.wordpress.com.

In a short span of time, over 200 opportunities have been shared - including tech competitions, social entrepreneurship fellowships, business plan competitions, research projects, internships, conferences, scholarships and volunteer opportunities. The blog has received close to 90,000 hits and highly encouraging feedback from the youth across the world.

We now seek a talented team of web designers, with relevant past experience, to create a portal that will help Let Me Know project sustain and better serve the youth community in India and the rest of the world.

If you would like to be involved in this assignment, write to letmeknowblog@gmail.com with your resume and a note on why you would like to contribute.

Thanks!

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Event: IdeaCamp Pune ( Website)

Key Dates:
Date of the Event: 10th May 2008

IdeaCamp is a self-organized gathering to share ideas and see them shape by applying divergent thinking. The objective of the camp is to get people from different roles like designers, entrepreneurs, financers, creative minds, technology evangelists, product managers and marketers together to bandy ideas from everyone’s viewpoint. Ideally by end of the gathering the participants should have ‘proof of potential’ for their ideas.

Some topics of Discussion

• Mobile applications
• Internet TV
• Community websites
• Smart appliances
• Social needs
• Education
• Reality shows
• Gaming
• Products for the masses
• Radio
• eGovernance
• Eco-friendly products

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Event: Reliance Rural Mobile Application Contest 2007 - 08 (Website)

Organized by: Reliance Communications

Key Dates:
Deadline for submission of the Aplication: 30 April 2008

For Whom:
Software Professionals,Self- employed Professionals,Students,Companies,Content vendors/ aggregators

Reliance Communications rated among the Asia’s 6 Topmost Valuable Telecom Companies, is India’s foremost truly integrated telecommunications service provider with over 35 million subscribers . The company has established a pan-India, next generation, integrated (wireless and wireline), convergent (voice, data and video) digital network that is capable of supporting best-of-class services spanning the entire Infocomm value chain.

The focus of the Mobile Application Contest 2007 - 08 will be on developing applications that cater to the rural customers. The applications could be in any of the following areas:

Transportation
M- Commerce
Information
Health,Education
Governance
Location Based Services

Applications can be developed for both CDMA and GSM technologies.

For More Details (Link)

Note : The website quotes the deadline as March 30,2008 , however the deadline has been extended to 30 April 2008 and all registered participants have been notified through e-mail.

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Event : Intellivision Programming Contest 2008 ( Website)

Organized by: Intellivision

Key Dates:
Deadline for submission of the game: November 1st,2008

Intellivision invites programmers to write games intended for an unexpanded Intellivision, Intellivision II, and Sears Super Video Arcade.The game must be no larger than 16K 16-bit words.

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Event:Intel Game Demo Contest 2008(Website)

Organized by : Intel Software Network

Key Dates :
Last date to upload Screen shots : July 1st,2008
Contest terminates on : July 28th, 2008

The 2008 Game Demo Contest invites demo abstracts. The participant has to simply send their idea for the next great game! As part of the entry, coding can be submitted or game design tips to improve compatibility and playability on Intel® Integrated Graphics and be eligible for special judges’ awards like a high-end gaming laptop.

Key Contest Phases:

Community voting: In April and continuing through July 28, 2008, there will be community voting on the best abstracts, with weekly prizes of $100 USD cash gift cards awarded.

Upload your media: Upload screenshots and movies of the demo before July 1, 2008 to be considered for finalist voting

Finalist voting: During the finalist selection period from July 1st to July 25, 2008, anyone who visits the site can vote on your screenshots and movies.

Finalist selection: At the end of the finalist selection period, the top scoring entries will receive priority consideration for the second round of judging, which will be done by Intel and game industry judges. At this time, finalists will need to submit the actual executable of their game demo.

Winner selection: The grand prize and subsequent prize winners will be selected by Intel’s panel of game development experts.

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Event: Autodesk Student Design Challenge (Website)

Organized By: Autodesk, Inc.

Key Dates:
Deadline for Submitting the complete designs at the website: June 15, 2008

For Whom:
Contest is open to individuals 18 and over or over the age of majority in their jurisdiction or residence, whichever is older, in the United States, Canada, Austria, Germany Spain, France, United Kingdom, Poland, Belgium, Finland, Italy, Russia, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Brazil, India, Japan, China, ASEAN member countries, Korea, New Zealand, and Australia but excluding residents of Florida, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, and the Province of Quebec.
The contestant must be a member of the Autodesk Student Engineering & Design Community

Autodesk Student Design Challenge is the platform for students to show their designing skills and creativity. Its the perfect way to share their masterpieces with the rest of the world. Its also a chance to get the work in front of an international panel of industry and Autodesk experts. There are fantastic prizes for the selected winners.

Entries will be accepted in the following categories:
1. Civil Engineering: Innovative Roadways
2. Architecture: The Ultimate Campus Buildings
3. Mechanic Engineering: Innovative Product Redesign
4. Industrial Design: Innovative Product Redesign
5. 3D Animation: Your Ultimate Superhero
6. Bonus Category: Sustainable Design

Prizes:
First Place Prize Packs will be awarded to the best design in each of the five main categories:
1. Xbox 360 Game Console
2. Full version of Maya® 2008
3. Profile on Autodesk.com and in the online Autodesk Student Magazine

One Grand Prize will be awarded for the best overall design among the first place winners in each category, and one will be awarded for the best sustainable design from the bonus category:
1. First Place Prize Pack
2. $200 (USD) Visa Gift Card* (or local currency equivalent)

3. Winning designer awarded a contract with Disruptive Media Publishers, the leading independent publisher of gamer themes on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace

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Event: Campus Talent (Website)

Organized By: CampusLearn (Website)

Key Dates:
Date of the Aptitude test: May 4, 2008

CampusLearn has started a new initiative to reward the best students depending on the aptitude of the candidates.

The test will be of 30 minutes duration in which u will have to solve maximum 30 questions. These questions will be targeted to test the aptitude of the candidate. Top performers will be awarded exciting Cash Prizes.

• First Prize–Rs 3000/-
• Second Prize–Rs 2000/-
• Third Prize–Rs 1000/-
• Amazingly Accurate–Rs 500/-
• Early Bird–Rs 500/-
• Geniusly Geek–Rs 500/-

Note:
Amazingly Accurate: For the aspirant whose accuracy rate is highest.
Early Bird: For the aspirant who can score atleast 12.66 in minimum time.
Geniusly Geek: For the aspirant who answers max right questions in 15 minutes.

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Event: Dare to Be Digital (Website)

Organized By: Channel 4 and The University of Abertay Dundee

Key Dates:
Deadlines for Submission of Application Form:
Scotland- May 6, 2008
All Ireland- April 22, 2008
China- May 1, 2008
India- May 2, 2008
South East, West Midlands and London- May 6, 2008

For Whom:
Team of 5 students (Postgraduate or Undergraduate) from Universities or Art Colleges within one of the following areas / regions- Scotland, Ireland, china, India, South East, West Midlands and London
(Web Link for More Information)

Dare to be Digital is a video games development competition for extremely talented students at Universities and Colleges of Art. Teams of 5 students, usually a mix of artists, programmers and audio, assemble in a regional hosting center for 10 weeks to develop a prototype video game, receiving daily support and weekly training sessions from industry specialists. Every year between June and August, students form teams of five and compete over 10 weeks to design a fully functioning video game prototype. At the end of 10 weeks, all the teams will gather at Dare Protoplay to showcase their work and be judged by industry experts. Dare Protoplay represents the most innovative design from emerging games artists and programmers and is open to the public to come and play the games.

At the end of the competition, the prototypes are displayed at a special talent showcasing event in Edinburgh, Dare ProtoPlay, alongside the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival in August. The general public as well as industry experts get to play and vote for the games. Prizes are then awarded to the winning teams at a special awards ceremony. Later in the year the winning teams attend the BAFTA Video Games Awards to compete for the coveted “Ones to Watch Award”.

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Suggested By Ashwin Bhat

Event: NetBeans IDE 6.1 Blogging Contest (Website)

Sponsored By: Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Key Dates:
Contest starts: March 14, 2008
Contest deadline: April 18, 2008
Judging period: April 19 - May 12, 2008
Winners announced: May 12, 2008

This contest in based on NetBeans IDE 6.1 Beta. The contestant has to post a blog describing the experience in using the new NetBeans IDE 6.1, a tutorial, insight, tech tip, cool code sample, request for enhancements, etc. The blog must include a link to the NetBeans Blogging Contest site. Entries must be new material and not copied from something already written.

Some of the ideas for Blogging are:

1. Show a cool code sample using the new NetBeans IDE 6.1
2. Create a “Top 10” NetBeans Tutorials/Links/Snippets/Tricks
3. Share your deep insight about NetBeans IDE 6.1 development, including your favorite features
4. Give suggestions on how to enhance the NetBeans IDE 6.1
5. Build a cool plugin to share with the NetBeans Community

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Event: Open Source Web Design Contest (Website)

Organized By: Open Web Design

Key Dates:
Deadline for submission of Web Design: April 1, 2008

Open Web Design is hosting a web design contest for designers of all ages from all around the world as a way to show off design talent and to have some fun. The theme for this years contest is “Spring Design”.

Criteria for the Event:

1. Design: The requirements set forth for designers for this contest include the following: the website design must be considered Web 2.0 and the site’s theme must have a definite tie to the spring season.
2. Accessibility/Usability:Basic techniques to enhance usability need to be used throughout the whole design. Clearly label links and images for easy use in both text and graphical browsers. Only one HTML page is required per submission, but links should be placed so users can easily navigate a full website. Your design should also be usable on a number of different platforms and screen resolutions.
3. Code Quality: Judges will go through code for each entry, so having properly formatted code will help them. All entries will validate on the w3 validator, no exceptions. Using bandwidth efficiently to display your HTML and graphics will get more points, but that doesn’t mean that the smaller designs will get always get more points. Using CSS classes for better modifiability is a bonus as well.

Prizes for the contest:

1st place - $1000
2nd place - $600
3rd place - $400

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Event :Microsoft Go A-Live Challenge (Website)

Organized by : Microsoft Corporation

Key Dates:
Registration Deadline : March 25,2008

Event:
The Contest is primarily a website designing contest.To participate in this contest a team of min 3 & max 5 students from the same college must register.Following this the team must become official team for the college by getting the principal’s declaration in a specified format on the college letterhead. Only 1 team is allowed per college.The team is expected to build the website using Windows Live features. The winning team would walk away with cash prize of Rs 2.5 Lakh & a Trophy to the winning College.

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Event: TechTop 2008 (Website)

Organized By: Degree Controls Inc (Website)

Hosted By: Technopark, Trivandrum

Key Dates:
Deadline for submissions of completed application with synopsis: March 22, 2008
Announcement of successful project teams: April 05, 2008
Exhibition and Presentation of projects and award ceremony: August 18-19, 2008

For Whom:
Students Pursuing degree course in any branch of engineering, of any semester in any Indian states and union territories and in colleges/Universities approved/recognized by AICTE/UGC.

TechTop is a unique contest organized to identify, promote and reward outstanding engineering talents with innovative ideas that can be demonstrated and commercially put to use. The theme for TechTop 2008 is “Technologies for Delaying or Surviving Global Warming” or ” Technologies for Rural Living”.

The selection procedure is as follows:
Stage 1:
The contest application along with the synopsis will be scrutinized by a committee of technical experts constituted by the organizers. The criteria for selection will be innovation, technical feasibility, commercial viability, social benefits etc.

Stage 2:
Projects selected in stage -1 will have to be demonstrated by the team at a location, which will be notified later by the organizers. The criteria for selection at this stage will purely be based on the successful demonstration of the project/successful achievement of the target for the first four month term.

The projects should be of pure engineering domain and should meet the following requirements:

1. Highly Innovative
2. Simple to Build, Operate and Maintain
3. Cost Effective
4. Energy Efficient
5. Rural Technology or Global Warming Themes based projects
6. The synopsis should be supported by market study / projection of demand with relevant data

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Program: Software Engineering Internship (Website)

Offered By: Google India.

Key Dates:
No application deadline as such.

For Whom:
The internship programme is for all who meet the following requirements.

1. Currently pursuing a BS, MS or PhD in computer science or a related technical field
2. Experience in systems software or algorithms
3. Excellent implementation skills (C++, Java, Python)
4. Knowledge of UNIX/Linux or Windows environments and APIs
5. Familiarity with TCP/IP and network programming a plus.

Software Engineers at Google are developers who yearn to create and implement full product lifecycles – not just code solutions. This means the applicants need to have a solid foundation in computer science, consistently come up with new ideas and naturally strive for a deep understanding of the products in order to be able to continually improve upon them. The teams at Google India develop massively scalable, distributed software systems and also collaborate on multitudes of smaller projects that have universal appeal – which requires research, awareness, interactivity and asking questions. Applicants bring strong competencies in data structures and algorithms along with a technical fascination for how stuff fits together. They are motivated to experiment and take chances in order to make a difference in their field, unafraid to stand up for your ideas and eager to embrace change.

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Event: Google Summer of Code (Website)

Organized By: Google

Key Dates:
Deadline for Accepting Applications for Mentoring Organization: March 12, 2008
Accepting Applications for Student: March 24, 2008 Onwards
Deadline for student Applications: March 31, 2008

Google Summer of Code is the flagship program of Google, designed to introduce university students to open source development. Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source projects. Google will be working with a several open source, free software, and technology-related groups to identify and fund several projects over a three month period. Students can discuss ideas with the groups registered as the mentoring organization with the Google Summer of Code.

While the majority of past student participants were enrolled in university Computer Science and Computer Engineering programs, GSoCers come from a wide variety of educational backgrounds, from computational biology to mining engineering. Many of their past participants had never participated in an open-source project before GSoC; others used the GSoC stipend as an opportunity to concentrate fully on their existing open source coding activities over the summer. Google will provide a stipend of 5000 USD per accepted student developer, of which 4500 USD goes to the student and 500 USD goes to the mentoring organization.

FAQ’s about Google Summer of Code

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Suggested By Bharath Kumar A R

TopCoder (Website)

TopCoder has become the major league for programming competitions. It organises Programming contests which range from Algorithms to Softawre designing and development.TopCoder brings members together once a week to compete online (Single Round Match) and twice a year both online and on location (Tournaments). In addition to regular Single Round Matches, TopCoder holds two major multiple-round, elimination tournaments each year. These tournaments span many weeks and include significant prize purses along three independent tracks of competition: algorithm, component design, and component development.

Competition:
Each Single Round Match offers a fun, time-based, and challenging set of problems that put a developer’s skills to the test. This, coupled with Divisions, offer a more level field of competition for newer members in order to build ratings and move into potential Tournament opportunities.

Design and Development:
Rated TopCoder members are eligible to participate in TopCoder Component Development. Members submit design and development solutions for these challenging and potentially lucrative projects. Winning solutions are rewarded with cash payouts and royalties. For every commercial sale, TopCoder will pay the members who designed and developed the component a percentage of the sale.

The various Competition categories include:

1. Algorithm
2. Software Architecture
3. Softawre Design
4. Software Development
5. Software Assembly
6. Software Testing
7. Bug Races
8. Marathon Matches

The upcoming TopCoder Tournaments are:

2008 TopCoder Open- May 11-15, 2008
2008 TopCoder High School- March 14-16, 2008

The Ongoing Marathon Match- Marathon Match 31

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Event: Think Quest International 2008 Website Competition (Website)

Organized by: Oracle Education Foundation

Key Dates:
Team Enrollment opens: August 15, 2007
Entry Submission Deadline: April 2, 2008

For Whom :
Teams of students of age group 9-19 years along with a teacher who can act as coach

ThinkQuest inspires students to think, connect, create, and share. Students work in teams to build innovative and educational websites to share with the world. Along the way, they learn research, writing, teamwork, and technology skills and compete for exciting prizes. ThinkQuest is a competition that offers a unique project-based learning experience to students and teachers across the globe. Everybody wins by having their completed websites published in the ThinkQuest Library, a rich online resource visited by millions monthly.Once a team is enrolled,the students must work together to create an innovative website on any topic within a broad range of educational categories. Diverse teams and globally relevant themes are encouraged.The top 5 teams receive laptop computers and a cash award for the coach’s school.

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