Socializing the WebATLANTA – May 12, 2008 - The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Foundation announced today that four teams of high school students have been selected as finalists for WebChallenge2008. WebChallenge (www.WebChallenge.org) is a yearly web development competition that enables teams of high school students to win scholarship money to attend Georgia colleges and universities. Winners of WebChallenge2008 and $15,000 in college scholarship money will be announced at a WebChallenge Awards banquet held at the Christopher W. Klaus Advanced Computing Building at Georgia Tech on May 16 from noon to 2:00.
The keynote speaker for the WebChallenge Awards event will be Chris Klaus, who founded Internet Security Systems, Inc. (ISS) in his Georgia Tech dorm room. In 2000, at the age of 26, Klaus donated $15 million to Georgia Tech to fund construction of the building that now bears his name. Klaus is now founder and CEO of Atlanta-based 3D virtual worlds provider Kaneva, Inc.
Four teams of high school students are finalists in this year’s WebChallenge competition, in which teams built and launched interactive applications on the Facebook social network:
In the promotional video for WebChallenge2008 (http://blip.tv/file/721633), Chris Klaus noted that “you see people becoming entrepreneurs at a younger age nowadays” and provided guidance to budding entrepreneurs: “My advice to somebody who has found something that they’re passionate about is to go pursue it with all their might. It’s a great time when you’re young to put all that you have behind a concept.”
WebChallenge is a yearly program of the TAG Foundation and is organized and managed by Atlanta technology industry volunteers. WebChallenge2008 scholarship awards of $15,000 are funded by global business software provider SAP, Atlanta-based open source software company Appcelerator, and Atlanta technology entrepreneur Wayt King.
WebChallenge is a yearly web development competition that enables teams of Georgia high school students to win college scholarship money. The competition is sponsored by the Technology Association of Georgia Foundation. For WebChallenge 2008, which will end in April, each competing student team will build and launch a FACEBOOK APPLICATION
We're coming together - students, teachers, volunteers, sponsors, and business professionals because we believe in a common goal.
We believe in equality, and the freedom of information. We believe in progress, growth, innovation. We believe in a future where thought will not be bounded by space, where actions will not be limited by time; a future, where everyone can touch the world and let the world touch them. We believe in the Internet, and we're here at the very beginning.
Twice, I've sat where you sit today - eager to win, eager to make a difference. For me, WebChallenge was the beginning of the road I walk today. In the years 2000 and 2001, I competed and did not win, but I learned.
The websites our team built served as my portfolio, landing me a job in the world's fastest growing industry before I was out of high school.
Burning with an ambition that WebChallenge lit inside of me - and empowered by my education at the College of Computing at Georgia Tech - I progressed from programmer to manager, from manager to executive, from executive to entrepreneur.
Today, only seven years since I attended my first WebChallenge Kick-Off event, I am living my dream. Webmasters International, a company I founded in 2005, today has nearly 40 employees in United States and Ukraine. In the next three years, we plan to become a global player in the field of web development outsourcing, connecting thousands of developers and hundreds of companies. WebChallenge has opened the door.
I'd like to thank our sponsors this year: SAP, the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, XI Interctive, Webmasters International, Appcelerator, Via Networks, WaySouth Media, and the organization that has made this competition possible, the Technology Association of Georgia Foundation.
I'd also like us to thank the volunteers that believe in this competition and the Atlanta business community for its continuing support over the last 10 years.
This year, is the 11th year anniversary of WebChallenge, and I believe that 2008 will be remembered as a significant milestone, a new beginning for this event. We are in the heart of the Internet entertainment revolution. Last year, companies like YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook established themselves as a favorite past time for a global audience.
This year, we create the Facebook aplication of the future. Good luck to all!
Allan Grant
WebChallenge 2008 Chairman Emeritus, CEO of Webmasters International
By being a contestant in WebChallenge, students can enjoy the following benefits:
By fielding a team from your school in WebChallenge, the school can enjoy the following benefits:
WebChallenge is an annual Technology Association of Georgia educational event.
