The MIT Enterprise Forum of New York and TradingScreen have announced the launch of the second annual award-winning “ Dream it. Code it. Win it. “ contest. The $50,000 student coding competition rewards and promotes creativity, diversity and literacy in the field of computer science.
“Computer science skills are critical to the modern economy. The innovation that is occurring in every field is directly tied to the breakthroughs made by the brilliant minds that are re-interpreting the discipline,” said CEO Philippe Buhannic of TradingScreen, which is sponsoring the Technology Entrepreneurship Award. “‘Dream it. Code it. Win it.’ alters the prism through which computer science is viewed by illuminating what the study can offer and the limitless potential it possesses, and will encourage more students to enter the field.”
Georgia Garinois-Melenikiotou, Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Estée Lauder , who is sponsoring the women’s prize, said, “The gender gap in STEM is especially troubling, as half of our population is being overlooked. Women today make up a majority of college students, but they are severely underrepresented in the field. The biggest problem facing women and engineering — and STEM in general — is getting more women into the pipeline. Resolving this problem requires us to transform some of the perceptions that remain embedded in our society. That’s why competitions like this are so important. Innovators have the power to do more than make our jobs easier. They can change the way we think and eliminate preconceived notions that were once the norm.”
“Our country is facing a significant test with a shortage of STEM workers, which is projected to only get worse. The competition illustrates the practicality of computer science by compelling students to think critically to solve problems that people encounter every day,” said Cristina Dolan , MIT EF Board Member and Dream it. Code it. Win it. Organizer.
Dream it. Code it. Win it. is different from traditional competitions or hackathons, which focus on coding. The contest is judged on the quality of the problem being tackled, as well as the solution. The first Dream it. Code it. Win it. competition in 2014 achieved a 50 percent female participate rate and enabled four teams to launch their own companies.
Mitchel Resnick , Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab and Chair of the Code-to-Learn Foundation, will serve on the panel. His Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the Media Lab collaborated with the LEGO Company on the Mindstorms and WeDo robotics kits. It developed the Scratch programming software and online community, where young people around the world have created and shared nearly eight million interactive projects.
Students attending accredited high schools and colleges will be able to compete for cash and prizes through an online submission until midnight on March 29th. The final awards ceremony will be hosted by The Cooper Union at the historic Great Hall in New York on the evening of April 30th. Visit www.dreamitcodeitwinit.org for more information about submitting, sponsoring or attending the event.
About MIT Enterprise Forum of New York City
MIT Enterprise Forum informs, connects and coaches technology entrepreneurs — enabling them to rapidly transform their ideas into world-changing companies. The global network of local organizations, with over 25 global chapters, was inspired by MIT and is open to the world. The forum is managed by MIT Technology Review , an independent global media company wholly owned by MIT .
About TradingScreen
TradingScreen is an independent provider of liquidity, trading and investment technology via SaaS to the financial community. TradingScreen’s goal is to simplify the complexity of markets, by consolidating all investment workflows for exchange-traded and OTC instruments on a single platform.
