BCNETwork News

December 2007

BCNET Broadband Innovation Challenge: Ready, Set, Go!

"Students Know More Than They Think They Do: BCNET Broadband Innovation Challenge Develops Job-Ready Grads"

BCNET has launched the 2008 Broadband Innovation Challenge, formerly known as the Coolest Applications Contest, to promote student innovation and to demonstrate utilization of BC’s high-speed broadband research networks. Higher education students from across the province are invited to participate in the challenge in exchange for publicity, cash prizes and the chance to network with industry and higher education leaders.

There is good news for graduating students approaching the job market for the first time: if you have made it to graduation, chances are that you have the stuff to realize your career ambitions. All it takes now is a little confidence and a few new skills. "The biggest thing I learned about students when I worked in private industry," says Donald Acton, an Instructor of Computer Science at UBC, "is that students know more than they think they do. They just need the confidence to realize this."

Donald is the Chair of the 2008 BCNET Broadband Innovation Challenge steering committee and adjudication panel, and a big believer in the boost of confidence that the competition gives to students scholastically, professionally and personally. The BCNET Broadband Innovation Challenge seeks entries from current undergraduate and graduate students who have developed leading-edge software applications that utilize super broadband research networks.

The competition offers students a chance to win up to $10,000 in prize money and the opportunity to showcase their work to over 500 academics and industry leaders at the BCNET Advanced Networks conference in the spring. According to Acton, the true value of the competition for students is not only in cash and recognition, but also in the process of academic and personal development that each competitor will experience.

"One of the biggest issues students have is crystallizing their thoughts," says Acton. "When they apply for this contest, they need to think about focusing their ideas and presenting them clearly." As part of the contest, students must produce a fully working application by the deadline date on March 15, 2008. Students learn to take an application from concept to completion – a skill highly prized by employers.

Communication skills are an asset to any professional team, and an essential component of the competition. Student competitors must clearly explain and demonstrate their application to the adjudication committee in March, and again to a wider audience that includes potential employers at the Advanced Networks conference in April. Apart from the coaching that top-placing competitors receive from the BCNET team to prepare for their presentations in April, student applicants learn from communication with academics and industry leaders at the conference. "Any opportunity to interact with people and get feedback has got to be good," says Acton.

UBC Graduate student of Genetic Pathology and 2005 BCNET Broadband Innovation Challenge winner, Maggie Cheung, agrees. "In our field, it is crucial that you deliver the meaning of your project in a short time, in a summary," she says. "In this competition, we only have one hour to give the application summary to an audience that is not from inside our field, which helped me to develop that skill." Cheung took the first place prize in the competition for her web database application that enables researchers to search thousands of digital microscope images of tissue samples taken from cancer patients. The ability for researchers and medical professionals to compare a wide variety of samples helps to diagnose and identify treatment of cancer. Cheung is set to graduate with her Ph.D. this summer, before she moves to the University of Northern Carolina for employment in a post-doctorate position where she will work with the supervisor that helped her to develop her winning application.

Former UBC Computing Science student, Camilo Rostoker, took third prize in the 2006 competition for his application that enables financial officers to analyze relationships between stocks on the market on a very large scale. "I thought it was a great experience," he says about participating in the competition. "I got a chance to practice my presentation skills, and that really makes you step back from your technology viewpoint, or academic viewpoint, and take on more of a business viewpoint." Since graduating from UBC with a Masters Degree in Computing Science, Rostoker has continued to work in the finance and technology field. He has developed his winning application further with his former supervisor, and the pair is looking for investors to help them commercialize the application and open it up to use by the entire finance sector.

For students that contemplate submitting their work to the BCNET Broadband Innovation Challenge, Acton advises that "If you're actually considering it, you should probably do it. The whole experience is worthwhile." Acton tells students that the adjudication committee is looking for work that is, above all, innovative. The committee wants to see an application that is technically difficult to achieve – something a bit more challenging to design than something one would produce for a normal class assignment. More importantly, the application must make use of high speed optical networks like the one that BCNET operates provincially, and have some commercial potential.

Students and instructors can learn more about rules, regulations and past winners by clicking here.