I am headed off to Seattle this weekend to participate in the Iasa IT Architect Competition (http://www.iitarch.org/), the first IT Architect scholarship competition for undergraduate and graduate students. This exciting event was the brainchild of the Seattle Chapter, and I could not be more excited about what it entails.
What makes me most excited about this is that we are continuously working on the next generation of architects. I will also be announcing the Iasa Foundation for Research and Innovation. This is a completely separate organization which will provide scholarship and grant funding for Women In Architecture as well as directed research and innovation development globally. I am very excited to have two very capable women executives on the board already and more to come.
The IT architecture competition is an amazing forum to bring together university students and practitioners and I’m deeply honored to be a part of it (though to be honest Tom Thomas, Shrikant Palkar and the Seattle Chapter did everything, I’m just their biggest fan).
The participants will be required to deliver an end-to-end architecture solution for a real world business problem. Each team will comprise of 3-5 students from same or different universities. The duration of the competition will be 10-12 weeks. Winning teams will receive $5000 – 1st place, $2500 – 2nd place, $1500 – 3rd place prizes, and certificate of achievement.

Why do I participate?

  1. Architect a solution for a real world problem.
  2. Employment opportunities in the Seattle area.
  3. Mentoring with practicing Architects from Costco, REI, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Nordstorm, F5 Networks Inc. and others.

How do I participate?

  1. Register online in a group of 3-5 students.
  2. Work with industry mentor that we will be provided.
  3. Develop the architecture solution to solve a business problem provided by a Fortune 50 company.

Who will evaluate?

Judging will be done by an independent expert panel comprising of Academia and senior Architects from the industry.