Overview

The goal of this competition is to develop innovative convergence applications. While the primary focus is on working end-to-end prototypes, the applications and services developed also need to be commercially viable with a strong emphasis on the user experience.

Teams:

In the CIC, teams of world-class student innovators from technical and business disciplines submit proposals over the Fall and Winter. These teams create new converged applications and services leveraging multi-session, multi-protocol visual and voice communication with relevant real-time information and media delivered over a variety of client devices and wired/wireless broadband networks. Proposals are evaluated for market and technical viability, novelty, creativity, and completeness.

Because of the focus on end-to-end prototypes and business viability, an ideal team might consist of 1 expert in human factors/interface design, 1 expert in business/marketing, and 1 or 2 systems/communications experts. While individuals, or alternate team makeups and sizes may compete, judging will not be adjusted for gaps in team composition. Teams are free to change the team members at any stage of the project. All the team members must be Georgia Tech students as of the Spring 2010 semester.

Sometimes it is difficult to find team members, especially from different departments. To help interested students find each other we have created a team building resource. If you are interested in joining a team or finding others who are looking for a team, please register with the CIC Team Building site.

Entrepreneurs Drive for their Prize

Successful proposals become entries in the competition for seed funding, professional business plan consultation, and matchmaking with Venture Capital firms, or intrapeneuring with the competition’s industry sponsors. It’s a big win and not just for the ‘winners’. Exceptional projects that are runner-up in a given year’s CIC may continue their work in the next annual competition or, in some cases; they too may be funded for continued and uninterrupted progress toward commercialization.

Categories for the 2010 CIC

• SIP+Web2.0 converged applications - sponsored By AT&T
• Wireless Solutions for the Utility Industry - sponsored by Verizon Wireless
• Interactive Television - Sponsored by the Georgia Tech GVU
• Campus Community Widgets - Sponsored by the Georgia Tech Office of Information Technology

Sponsorship

Category sponsors can target results of the competition by defining aspects of a competition category such as the subject domain, objectives, business and technical constraints for developers, milestone reviews, prizes, judges, and judging criteria. Senior Graduate Research staff are assigned to encourage and support students’ use of the Category Sponsor’s products and pursuit of the sponsor’s defined interests. “At Large" or contributing sponsors’ products are also made part of the platform and are available for use by CIC teams.

Judging Criteria:

The following criteria is considered by the judges when reviewing all competition entries:

• working end-to-end prototype
• commercial viability
• robust user experience and interface
• client platform diversity and feature scaling
• service platform diversity and composition
• video demonstration of prototype and project documentation

Additional judging criteria can be applied based on the category definition.