Purdue News

December 2000 Students set their sites on winning $5,000 Internet Olympiad WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Students are racing against time in a high-tech showdown to create new, commercially viable Internet technology in Purdue's first Internet Olympiad. "The goal of the Internet Olympiad," said Aditya Mathur, associate head of the Department of Computer Sciences, "is to get students to develop a prototype of an Internet application for which they could get venture capital funding and start a company." In early November, six out of 54 teams in round one, a "quiz show" competition, became semifinalists. One week later, the winning teams had 96 hours to create an interactive Web site for iMower.com, a fictional company. Judges selected three winning teams to compete in February's final round of competition. In the final round, the remaining teams will have three months to create an Internet-based application. Twenty experts from the computer industry will select the winning team based on criteria including the teams use of creativity and the application's commercial potential. Next year, Mathur would like to expand the competition to students from other colleges and universities. Founding corporate sponsor of the event is Tivoli. Other sponsors are IBM Corp., Schulmberger, Eli Lilly and Co., and Microsoft. CONTACT: Aditya Mathur, associate head, Department of Computer Sciences, (765) 494-7823, olympiad@cs.purdue.edu Compiled by Sharon A. Bowker, (765) 494-9723; sbowker@purdue.edu Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu To the Purdue News and Photos Page