Thursday, 1 March 2007

Red Hat Announces Contest for Graduate Students Worldwide

Red Hat, a provider of open source solutions, has launched the first Red Hat Challenge, a contest for graduate students to formulate a group concept plan in response to a business challenge question. The Red Hat Challenge is an open invitation to create a solution to a Red Hat business problem and provide the Company with original, ideas to shape its future business model, the company explained.

All full-time and part-time students attending graduate business school or graduate design school in pursuit of a master's degree in business administration or similar degree are eligible to enter in the Red Hat Challenge. Registration for the challenge is open until March 11. Teams of three to five students attending the same school will collaborate on the business challenge question released to registrants on March 12. Each team will have a two-week period from March 12-25 to develop an innovative concept plan to deliver to Red Hat.

Contest judging will take place in a two-part process. During the first phase, each concept plan will be reviewed and critiqued by a panel of judges who are experts in the field of business and open source technology. The top five concept plans will be selected as finalists in the second and final phase. Each group will present a 15-minute oral presentation to the panel of judges followed by a 15-minute question and answer session. In early April, the top three teams will be announced and all participants will obtain access to feedback on their concept plans, RedHat representatives said.

According to the company, the winning team will have the opportunity to send one team member to the Red Hat Summit in San Diego, May 9-11 to collect a grand prize of USD 20,000 and experience all the benefits of the Red Hat Summit's open source knowledge exchange. Winners will also be considered for prestigious Red Hat internships. For more information, or to submit a nomination for the Red Hat Challenge, please click here.