AIS Software Innovation Challenge (2023)

2023 AIS Software Innovation Challenge Award Winners: 

On November 3, AIS Student Chapter members from around the world met to attend the virtual AIS 2022 Student Chapter Leadership Conference hosted by AIS. Students learned from industry professionals, hosted a leadership workshop, and earned awards for their competition solutions. The competition judging committees represented both industry and academia.

This challenged allowed competitors to demonstrate the impact Information Systems can have in improving the world. Teams designed and implemented an innovative IS solution based a their choice of a number of parameters—focusing mostly on the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.

The judges decided to award two first place winners and split the first and second place prizes. The Associate Vice President of Student Chapters, Alex Barsi Lopes, said it was too difficult to decide a first place winner due to the high quality divergent paths the two teams took with their submissions.

Congratulations to the following competition winners!

1st Place: Florida International University
Smart Forests

1st Place: Middle Tennessee State University
Wastewise

----

This challenge will allow you to demonstrate the impact that IS can have in improving the world in which live. If you accept this challenge, your team of 2-5 individuals will design and implement an innovative IS solution fitting one of the parameters below. (Groups of fewer than 3 individuals are not encouraged, but a submission would not be rejected because of it.)  Your solution may run on any platform, be coded in any language and deployed in any device environment. Projects that implement an IoT solution are particularly welcome.

Topic areas could also focus around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by a multitude of countries on September 25th 2015, with objectives such as ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring prosperity for all. Each of the 17 goals has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years.

Goals include:

• No poverty
• Zero hunger
• Good health and well-being
• Quality education
• Gender equality
• Clean water and sanitation

• Affordable and clean energy
• Decent work and economic growth
• Industry, innovation, and infrastructure
• Reduced inequalities
• Sustainable cities and communities
• Responsible consumption and production

• Climate action
• Life below water
• Life on land
• Peace, justice, and strong institutions
• Partnerships for the goals

Successful submissions will propose an IS/IT-centered solution to a problem or opportunity that addresses one of the 17 sustainable development goals. Participants are encouraged to be creative and think out of the box to develop an innovative solution to an identified problem.

For more details about the UN Sustainable Development Goals go to https://sdgs.un.org/goals.

Questions? Contact studentcompetitions@aisnet.org

Upload your video to YouTube.com (make sure that you don’t make your video private so we can access it!)

Email the following to studentcompetitions@aisnet.org by the deadline:

• Your submission as Word or PDF file that includes the problem statement, solution description, benefits, platform, etc.
• Text file of any code as explained in the project instructions
• Link to your video
• Names and email addresses of the team members with a corresponding author identified (as part of the email body)

• The project submissions should be the work of the project team. If faculty and/or other individuals have significantly contributed to the submission, please be sure to note their contributions.
• Alpha / Early development system solutions are completely acceptable.
• Submissions that are based on pre-beta solutions and/or from pre-existing on-going coursework projects are acceptable as well.
• The contest materials must be submitted by the due dates.
• Teams must be members of an AIS Student Chapter.
• If the number of submissions allow, graduate and undergraduate groups may be judged separately. In this case, a team with a 50% or more graduate student composition will be classified as a graduate student team.
• No deliverable can identify the university or school to which the team belongs. The team must refrain from using school colors in the submitted documents. The video should not indicate to which school the team belongs. If school identification is included in any of the submitted documents or video, the team will be eliminated from the competition. 

• October 26 (11:59pm Eastern) – Preliminary submissions deadline
• October 31 – Finalists notified
• November 3 – Final presentations (during the conference) and winners announced

• First place: $2,000
• Second place: $1000
• Third place $500

For the preliminary round the student team must submit a report in PDF format that contains:

1. The problem that the team has chosen to address and why it is important to solve this problem.  What is the potential impact of solving the problem?
2. A detailed description of your proposed solution which should include a written description of the solution, diagrams that communicate the solution and its components, the solution architecture and platform, etc.
3. A statement of why you believe that your solution is innovative (ex. How is it different than what currently exists or has been tried before? What makes your solution “special”?)
4. A discussion of the major business aspects of your application including who your target audience is, how you are going to let them know your application exists, so they can take advantage of it, and how you are going to finance continuing operations (i.e. selling the application, advertising, grants, etc.),
5. An introduction of each team member and a description of the role that he/she plays on the project team. The introduction should not include any information that could be use to identify the school to which the team belongs.
6. A link to a video that demos the “alpha” prototype of the solution (see video instructions below).

In addition to the report, the team video guidelines are:

1. The video must not be more than 7-10 minutes in length.
2. The team should briefly introduce the problem and the solution in the video, along with a demo of the alpha prototype (if applicable.)
3. Remember that this is only a demo of the alpha prototype, so it doesn’t need to be completely ready for “prime time.” The judges are primarily concerned with whether or not your team has considered the technological aspects of your solution and if it reflects what your team described in the report.
4. All team members must be featured in the video. Team members must refrain from using school colors or any accessory that allows for school identification.
5. The video cannot indicate to which school the team belongs.

The top submissions, as scored by the judges, will move on to the final round, to be held during the Online AIS Student Chapters Leadership Conference on November 3, 2023.  In this round, the teams will be required to make a 15-minute presentation of their report to a panel of judges. After the presentation, there will be a 10-minute Q&A with the panel of judges.  Each slide deck must contain a title slide including the names of the team members (no email addresses or other contact information). The team should not identify its school affiliation on the title slide or anywhere else in the slide deck, nor should it mention that affiliation (directly or indirectly) during its presentation. Team members should refrain from wearing school colors.