The MIT Council for Educational Technology (MITCET) and the Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT) are pleased to announce Bookxor has been selected as the grand prize winner of the 2011 iCampus Student Prize competition. The winners are on their way to the San Francisco Bay Area to use their $7,500 cash prize to help launch a new startup, ClassMetric.com.
The five finalists from the first round competition were invited to present a poster and give a short presentation at the MIT Faculty Club on April 25, 2011. Judges from MIT and Microsoft Research evaluated the five finalists in four areas: relevance to MIT, potential for impact, design and possible barriers to implementation.
Congratulations to all that participated in the 2011 competition!
Grand Prize Winner
Bookxor closes the feedback loop between students and professors for course notes providing professors analytics and enabling students to study collaboratively. The Bookxor Team consists of Peter Reinhardt ’12, Erika Bildsten ’12, Ilya Volodarsky ’12, and Calvin French-Owen ’12.
The judges remarked that Bookxor “adds unique value to reading online, add[ing] a sorely needed assessment tool to an instructor’s arsenal.” Of the finalists, Bookxor was the “best thought out, with big goals.”
Runner-Up
The judges also recognized the contributions BooksPicker has made to the MIT community, naming it runner-up for the 2011 iCampus Student Prize competition. BooksPicker received a $2,500 cash prize as runner-up.
Bookspicker allows students to search for what textbooks are required for their classes, pick the ones they want and look for the best prices online, the Coop or locally. The BooksPicker team consists of Sinchan Banerjee ’11, Jonathan Goldberg BS ’09 & MEng ’10, and Rodrigo Ipince ’09.
More Information
Further information on the iCampus Prize, as well as announcements of future competitions, can be found at iCampusPrize.mit.edu.
About the iCampus Prize
The iCampus Technology Innovation Student Prize recognizes the innovative and creative application of technology that improves the educational and student life experiences at MIT. The competition builds upon the entrepreneurism and spirit of service exhibited by MIT students to solve the world’s problems by focusing attention of what might be improved closer to home in MIT’s education and student life.
The competition is open to all current MIT undergraduates and graduate students, both individuals and groups. Entries must involve the use of technology to enhance life and learning at MIT, and they must be developed to the point where MIT could adopt them and make them part of its environment.