We are happy to announce the Hack Your World with Amazon Alexa contest for university students. This is our second collaboration with MindSumo, a company that focuses on offering students everywhere first-hand experience with industry projects.

As voice technology becomes ubiquitous around us, developers are quickly learning about voice user interfaces (VUI). As a student, you are well positioned to create intuitive ways for people to interact with technology and can make a big impact on the interfaces of tomorrow. This contest is your chance to show customers on millions of Alexa-enabled devices what you can build using the Alexa Skills Kit.

There are two ways to win. You can build a new voice-activated Alexa skill focused on either sustainability or accessibility.

Sustainability challenge: Build an Alexa skill that promotes a sustainable lifestyle and empowers Alexa users to make a change in the way they live. For example, you might build an Alexa skill that compares the carbon footprint generated by catching the bus versus driving a car. Using publicly available datasets may be useful for this challenge.

Accessibility challenge: Build an Alexa skill that makes life on your university campus easier for those who may not experience it the way you do. You could, for example, build an Alexa skill that gives users directions optimized for someone using a wheelchair or scooter.

Entries will be judged on their usefulness and creativity among a few other criteria. The best part: no hardware is necessary to participate. If you do not have an Alexa-enabled device, you can test your skill with Alexa right in your browser and begin building your skill right away. See the full contest rules here.

Here is what you can win:

• Top two skills in the Sustainability category: $400 and an Amazon Echo
• Top two skills in the Accessibility category: $400 and an Amazon Echo
• The first 25 submissions to publish their skills and submit a contest entry and who are not top winners will receive an Amazon Echo Dot.

The contest begins today and will close on May 7 at 11:59:59 PM PST. Winners will be announced on or around May 31, 2017.

Start building your Alexa skill today. We can’t wait to see what you build.

Restrictions may apply, see the contest rules on MindSumo’s page.

Alexa <3s Students

In March, we announced the Alexa Fund Fellowship program to drive adoption of Alexa in curriculum. In October 2016, we announced the Amazon Alexa Prize, a $2.5 million competition to advance conversational AI. And we’ve taught thousands of students at developer events and hackathons how to build their first Alexa Skills. As we often say at Amazon, it’s always day one, and there is so much more to do.

About the Alexa Skills Kit

The Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) enables developers to build capabilities, called skills, for Alexa. ASK is a collection of self-service APIs, documentation, templates, and code samples that make it fast and easy for anyone to add skills to Alexa. 

Developers have built more than 10,000 skills with ASK. Explore the stories behind some of these innovations, then start building your own skill. Once you publish your skill, mark the occasion with a free, limited-edition Alexa dev shirt. Quantities are limited. 

About Amazon’s Worldwide Sustainability Team

Amazon’s Worldwide Sustainability team capitalizes on Amazon’s scale, speed, and ability to invent and simplify to create a better and more resilient company. We manage our social and environmental impacts globally, and we drive solutions that enable our customers and our business to become more sustainable.

Worldwide Sustainability consists of seven teams: social responsibility, energy and environment, customer packaging experience, sustainability services, sustainability technology, sustainable transportation, and sustainability science R&D.