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OSU App Center announces 4th Annual App Competition with new sponsors

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

The OSU App Center welcomes the City of Stillwater as the title sponsor for the 4th Annual App Competition, which kicks off Oct. 1. The competition offers Oklahoma State University students $10,000 in prize money to generate ideas and concepts, and develop mobile applications that showcase creativity and skills based on the contest theme. The competition is co-sponsored by the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship in the OSU Spears School of Business.

The theme, “Pioneering Quality of Life for Stillwater Residents,” reflects the city’s interest in mobile apps that enhance life for Stillwater residents. The app can address city services or programs, community and economic development, tourism, recreation, general city government or any aspect that improves quality of life in Stillwater.

“We want to explore all opportunities to enhance the quality of life for Stillwater citizens, and we know OSU students are creative and innovative,” Stillwater Mayor Gina Noble said. “Students live, work and play in Stillwater, and they understand Stillwater is anything but still. I’m sure they will produce some great app ideas and concepts that will benefit our community.”

Currently, the city offers two apps for download. One is designed for cyclists to record their routes and also provide data to city transportation planners, and one is for reporting issues to the city that need to be addressed. The competition will potentially provide Stillwater with additional apps for use to enrich the user’s experiences in the city.

“We’re looking for apps that are unique and creative that no one has thought of yet and that aren’t already available in the market,” said Sherry Fletcher, Stillwater director of marketing and public relations. “We’re looking for something that is outside the box.”

“OSU and the App Center are excited to have the City of Stillwater and the Riata Center sponsoring this year’s app competition,” said Jai Rajendran, manager of the OSU App Center. “As this year’s theme is broad and directly relevant to student life here in Stillwater, I am looking forward to seeing a lot of unique and innovative ideas from the student body.”  

In the first phase of the competition, named Best App Idea, which is now open to entries, any OSU student can submit an idea for an app that fits the theme. Students with the top 10 ideas will present storyboards with their concepts to a panel of judges. The best two ideas will be awarded $500 each with the remainder winning $250 each.

In the contest’s final phase, or Best Developed App, which will be held during the spring 2016 semester, teams of students with app development skills will select one of the two winning concepts from phase one and create working apps. The developed apps will be demonstrated to judges in the competition finals in March. A first place and runner up will picked for each concept with $3,000 awarded to top finishers and $1,000 to the runner ups.

Idea submission forms are available at https://appcenter.okstate.edu/content/idea-submission-form and can be submitted online or printed and emailed to osuappcenter@okstate.edu. Forms can also be turned in at the App Center in the Henry Bellmon Research Center on the OSU campus. The deadline for idea submission is Nov. 2.

More information about the competition and the OSU App Center is available at https://appcenter.okstate.edu/.

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