Verizon Innovative Learning App Challenge Now Accepting Entries
The Verizon
Innovative
Learning app challenge is now accepting entries for the fifth
annual
competition. What is billed as a no-coding-skills-needed contest is
intended to
identify new apps created by middle and high school students.
National winners will earn up
to a $20,000 cash prize for their school or organization. One middle
and one
high school team in each state and the District of Columbia will win
$5,000 for
their school or organization and a tablet for each member of the team.
Teams
representing nonprofit organizations and public, private and parochial
schools
are eligible.
Entries will be accepted through November 18 and winners will be announced in January or February.
After the
best app in each state is identified, they will move on to regional
competitions and the winners at that level will win $15,000 for their
school or
organization and the opportunity to bring their app idea to life with
the help
of experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
There will also be a Fan
Favorite winner selected by the public. The Best in Nation and Fan
Favorite
winners will present their apps at the 2017
Technology Student Association
National Conference June 21 in Orlando.
"When we first launched the
app challenge five years ago, we couldn't have foreseen the dramatic
impact
that it would have," said Verizon Director of Education Justina
Nixon-Saintil, "not
only on individual students but on entire schools across the country."
Apps developed during the
challenge over the past four years have been downloaded more than
23,500
times. In 2015, a
middle school team
developed an app to help prevent concussions among athletes that caught
the
attention of the National Football League and invited them to present
their
innovation at NFL's annual meeting.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.