Judging student software competitions

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I had the honor of being a judge at the Software Development Trade Show hosted at University of Wollongong in Dubai
It was a great event and good to see the level of projects that undergraduate students are doing here locally.  Every team did a great job and the winners had some really impressive projects.  The first prize winners had a robot simulation which they've entered into RoboCup, the only entrant from the arab region.

Last week Microsoft hosted the Imagine Cup finals  and the winners there from UAE University also had a great project for using their commute time to help them learn more by having quizzes available on their mobile phones.

From both of these competitions it seems as if the student generation is really looking at how new technologies can improve their lives and the community around them.  I have 2 comments and advice for anyone in these types of competitions:

1. Keep in mind that the judges have a very short amount of time to learn about your project.  You've probably spend months if not a year on it so you know everything about your project, but we (the judges) know very little or nothing.  Before getting into the details of how you did the project, tell us what the project is and make sure people understand the goal.  At yesterday's event, we judged 21 teams and got to spend 5 minutes with each, so knowing the goal was the key to understand why they approached it in certain ways.

This is not just for competitions but in any presentation, make sure people get the bigger picture because otherwise the details are just details with no context.  As they say in any presentation:

First, Tell them what you're going to show them; Then Show them; Finally Sum up and tell them again what you showed them :)

2.  If the judges are from "Industry" as I was one of 2 industry representatives yesterday, they will tend to be tougher on certain aspects than academic judges.  When you're starting a new project, research what's out there already.  It may not seem as important in academia but within industry we're always looking at competition and new ideas and innovation.  One of the first questions you'll get asked by a VC or in this case a judge is "How is your solution better than XYZ (something on the market)?"  What's your competitive advantage?  Think about that before starting the project and keep it in mind as a question you'll always get, at least from me :)