Student research competition kicks off

A new student research competition will be announced at a campus kick-off event April 25. The competition is the first project in a partnership between Tech, Cingular Wireless and Siemens Communications. The competition involves development of Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) applications.

According to Matt Sanders, a research scientist for the Office of Information Technology, there will be $100,000 in awards for different project categories.

“The competition is going to take place next year,” Sanders said. “ Seimens is donating an IMS platform that students will be able to use.”

The two sponsors are planning for a five hundred student turnout at the kickoff event, which will feature food, entertainment, talks by corporate officers and information on how students can become involved in the competition.

“We have been working on it for about a year,” Sanders said. “The contract was signed in Nov. Students will start participating in fall.”

According to Sanders, the students will be working on their proposals during the fall semester.

“Implementation prototyping will take part in the fall with judging and awards culminating at the end of spring,” said Russ Clark, a research scientist for the Office of Information Technology.

According to Clark, it is currently a one year competition with the goal of all parties being to extend it if the competition is successful.

“Tech is not putting up any money,” Sanders said. “The GT entities involved are the Office of Information Technology (OIT) and the Georgia Tech Research Network Operations Center. They are responsible for managing the existing research relationship we have with Cingular.”

The equipment that Seimens donated will be housed in the Electronic Design Center.

“Students are going to have access to this IMS platform which they otherwise would never experience during college,” Sanders said. “This is what quite a number of telecommunications providers are looking at as the next platform for service delivery.”

According to Sanders, the students also have the opportunity to create prototypes which do things that current phones cannot currently do.

“There is a heavy emphasis on location awareness, mobility and collaboration,” Sanders said. “We are looking for novel and innovative applications which leverage those capabilities in the platform.”

“The students will mostly be working on application development for phones and other mobile service devices such as PDAs and laptops,” Clark said. “The architecture will significantly open what has been traditionally hard for anyone to develop new applications for cell phone and cell phone dividers.”

According to Clark, the IMS platform and tools will allow students to develop in this environment.

The kickoff event will take place in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) from 5pm-8pm on April 25.

“The kick-off will let students know that there is an opportunity waiting for them in the fall when they return,” Sanders said. “The event is also a chance to network with students and professionals and to create teams.”

To aid the students in the competition, two courses will be taught: one during the fall semester and one during the spring. However, the courses are not required to compete. “They will provide a chance for hands on learning with the technologies involved,” Clark said.

The special topics courses will be taught by Clark in CoC, but will be open to all students.