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Team from Stanford University is national winner of Juicy Ideas Collegiate Competition Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College takes second place in annual student entrepreneur contest, creating application for outdoors enthusiasts
(ASHEVILLE, N.C.) – June 4, 2010 – A software application developed by a student team from Stanford University, in Palo Alto, Calif., has emerged as the winning entry in the 2010 Juicy Ideas Collegiate Competition, a national contest challenging students to create a software application that uses publicly available data to benefit their community. The students’ “Truth or Dare” entertainment application allows users to discover and research leisure activities, from places to take a date, to the best cookie recipes for baking, to movies available from the closest video store. Juicy Ideas, designed to engage students in entrepreneurship and encourage innovation and creativity, was organized by AdvantageWest, the economic development group serving Western North Carolina, with support from Google and in partnership with DigitalChalk, developers of an online software platform for training and continuing education. The “Stanford Steppers” narrowly defeated the “AB Techies,” from Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, in Asheville, N.C., whose Asheville-Outdoors.com application provides interactive information on activities available in Western North Carolina for outdoor adventure-seekers. Not far behind in third place was the PoliGraph, created by the “Jappa” team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge (MIT), which enables users to visualize, discover and discuss connections between politicians. Other national finalists were from the University of Washington, the University of California Irvine, and Cañada College in Redwood City, Calif. Members of the Stanford team are George Tang, 19, of Beijing, team captain; Mark Bocanegra, 21, of Manila, Phillipines; Xuwen Cao, 19, of Changzhou, China; Joseph Lau, 20, of Vancouver, Wash.; and Jason Wei, 21, of Naperville, Ill. Tang, Cao and Lau are computer science majors; Wei is studying mathematical computational science. Bocanegra is majoring in economics and East Asian studies. The team wins an all-expense-paid trip to Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. In addition, each team member receives an Android-powered phone. More About Juicy Ideas Schools within 50km of a Google U.S. data center or corporate office were eligible to compete. Teams researched publicly available data to create their software application and submitted their entry via a YouTube video. (See below for links to submissions.) A panel of judges independently reviewed and rated the entries based on the following: ability to disseminate public data in a relevant manner; potential for community impact; usability; creativity, innovation, and uniqueness; business potential and scalability; and effectiveness of video. Judges were: Erskine Bowles, co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and president of the UNC University System; Eric Jackson, vice president of marketing at Lab Escape, a data analysis and visualization company based out of Boston; Jenny Manner, chair of the Asheville-based technology organization, Meet the Geeks; Mary Radomile, educational programs, Google Inc., in Mountain View; Debesh Senapati, venture capitalist with the global investment firm Bain Capital; and Chris Sheehan, managing director with the Boston-based investment firm, CommonAngels. This is the second year for Juicy Ideas. The original competition, in 2008, focused on the environmental and entrepreneurial challenge of creating value from a throwaway item. The winning team, from Appalachian State University, in Boone, N.C., crafted a working bicycle from plastic water bottles – an idea that continues to be developed through business connections the students have made as a result of their winning entry. Contest poses greater challenges in 2010 While the 2010 competition still centered on innovation and creativity – of particular interest to AdvantageWest, for which entrepreneurial development is a programmatic focus – the concentration on software and data aligned well with the core concentrations of DigitalChalk and Google, said Matt Dunne, community affairs manager at Google. "We knew we were significantly raising the bar by piloting a different approach this year. Students not only had to show their creative spirit, but needed the computer programming know-how as well. Each of the groups had a great combination of innovation and technology to create an application that has excellent potential in the marketplace." Troy Tolle, co-founder and chief technology officer with DigitalChalk said the level of difficulty of this year’s contest posed a greater challenge than the 2008 competition. "All of the finalist teams approached the problem from different perspectives and technologies. We had uses of data that involved everything from websites to multi-platform mobile applications. We expected great uses of technology and these students delivered," said Tolle. "The problem was more abstract and certainly more technical than last year, but that did not deter the submission of high quality, useful applications. We were all impressed." "Juicy Ideas was a totally different experience this year and it was great to see the competition expand, both in scope, but also geographic outreach," said Pam Lewis, senior vice president for entrepreneurial development at AdvantageWest. "This current generation of students is very engaged in the global community and their approach is very entrepreneurial. Technology-related enterprises is a core focus of the AdvantageWest entrepreneur program and we are excited about the future of this generation of entrepreneurs." 2010 JUICY IDEAS COLLEGIATE COMPETITION Info on winning team and runners up Winning School: Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. Team: Stanford Steppers Application: "Truth or Dare" is an entertainment application that enables anyone to discover new content Video Team members: George Tang, team captain, age 19 Hometown: Beijing, China Year in School/Major: Junior, Computer Science Mark Bocanegra, age 21 Hometown: Manila, Philippines Year in School/Major: Junior, Economics and East Asian Studies Xuwen Cao, age 19 Hometown: Changzhou, China Year in School/Major: Sophomore, Computer Science Joseph Lau, age 20 Hometown: Vancouver, Wash. Year in School/Major: Junior, Computer Science Jason Wei, age 21 Hometown: Naperville, Ill. Year in School/Major: Junior, Mathematical Computational Science 2nd Place School: Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, Asheville, N.C. Team: AB Techies Application: Asheville-Outdoors.com provides interactive information on activities available in the Asheville and Western North Carolina area for outdoor adventure seekers Video 3rd Place School: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Mass. Team: Jappa Application: The PoliGraph enables users to visualize, discover, and discuss connections between politicians. Video: ###### | |
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