[AISWorld] Student API Programming Competition (update)

Mon Jul 25 11:33:31 EDT 2011

Dear colleagues,

As a follow-up to an earlier email I sent to the list on July 12th, please note that the deadline for faculty to inform TradeKing of their interest in participating in the Fall semester API Campus Programming Challenge is July 31st. Fifteen (15) schools have expressed interest thus far including several with top tier IS programs. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out in the classroom since TradeKing is open to any use of their API. We have already heard from schools about developing mobile apps, DSS tools for options trading, and ways of applying Twitter feeds to stock trading. TradeKing welcomes and would like to encourage greater participation from faculty with an interest in embedding the API challenge into their Fall curriculum or who would like to expose their IT/CS students and programming clubs to this type of opportunity. To sign-up for the competition or to obtain additional information, please email campuschallenge at tradeking.com<mailto:campuschallenge at tradeking.com>.

Sincerely,

Paul
-------------------------------------------
Prof. Paul P. Tallon
Associate Professor
Executive Director, David D. Lattanze Center for Information Value
Information Systems and Operations Management (ISOM)
Sellinger School of Business and Management (Room 325)
Loyola University Maryland
4501 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, MD 21210
Tel: (410) 617-5614  Fax: (410) 617-2118
Email: pptallon at loyola.edu<mailto:pptallon at loyola.edu>; Url: http://www.evergreen.loyola.edu/~pptallon

Click here<http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe2f157271610d78741574&ls=fe0313747667047d73157176&m=fef511727d6d06&l=fe8d1674766c017872&s=fe2613737267047f761c78&jb=ffcf14&t=> to view this e-mail in a browser.

[http://marketing.tradeking.com/images/email/youtube/email_hdr_beone.jpg]

Your knowledge.
Our API.<http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe2c157271610d78741676&ls=fe0313747667047d73157176&m=fef511727d6d06&l=fe8d1674766c017872&s=fe2613737267047f761c78&jb=ffcf14&t=>
You are cordially invited to TradeKing's API Campus Programming Challenge.<http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe2c157271610d78741676&ls=fe0313747667047d73157176&m=fef511727d6d06&l=fe8d1674766c017872&s=fe2613737267047f761c78&jb=ffcf14&t=>

Dear IS Faculty,

This email serves as an invitation to you and your students to consider competing in our planned Fall 2011 $100,000 API Campus Programming Challenge, sponsored by TradeKing. There is no fee to enter this Challenge.

Born out of a groundbreaking pilot program conducted in Spring 2011 at the Sellinger School of Business and Management at Loyola University Maryland, the semester-long TradeKing Challenge provides undergraduate business/finance and technology students with real-life experience developing an investment-focused "app" using TradeKing's Application Programming Interface (API). The current plan is for at least 20 colleges and universities nationwide to be selected to compete in the Fall 2011 Challenge. Teams will compete in four main divisions, perhaps organized regionally; students from non-participating schools and teams comprised of students from more than one school may compete as part of a fifth "open" division.

TradeKing <http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe2c157271610d78741676&ls=fe0313747667047d73157176&m=fef511727d6d06&l=fe8d1674766c017872&s=fe2613737267047f761c78&jb=ffcf14&t=> is a top-ranked, nationally-licensed online stock and options broker intensely focused on IT innovation and known for providing great customer service to self-directed online retail brokerage clients. Since our inception in 2005, TradeKing has never stopped pushing the boundaries of innovation, being the first to incorporate social media in a trading environment and using the latest development languages and architectures to deliver the most modern and value-driven retail trading experience anywhere. Continuing on the path of innovation, TradeKing is investing in its new API and is seeking to engage premier educational institutions in a groundbreaking API Challenge.

Innovation in the Classroom
The TradeKing Challenge uses the concept of crowdsourcing in the classroom to discover new and exciting ideas at the intersection of IT and finance. We believe this is the first-ever use of crowdsourcing by a brokerage firm with students in the U.S. Through a competitive process, students are expected to develop new "apps" using the TradeKing API, potentially combining the TradeKing API with other APIs from firms such as Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google.

Who Can Participate and When Does the Challenge Run?
Once participating schools are selected and the Challenge rules, details and competitive divisions are finalized, the competition should be open to all undergraduate business/finance, computer science, and IT students enrolled at the selected schools. The Challenge is currently planned to run from September 12, 2011 through midnight on December 12, 2011.

Does the Challenge Have to Be Part of a Class?
No. While we encourage faculty to embed the challenge in their syllabus as part of a final semester deliverable, for those who are not teaching a relevant programming or finance class in the Fall, we would encourage you to seek participation from students in your previous classes or from other faculty whom you know will be teaching a programming or other relevant class this Fall. You could also work with your advisees or with student programming clubs on campus.

What's the Educational Value of Participating? Some Early Results...
For Students:
The student winners of the TradeKing/Loyola University Spring 2011 pilot program received cash rewards. One student was offered a paid summer internship in TradeKing's Charlotte office. But more than this, each student got a rare chance to work alongside an industry leader, learn first-hand about the software/product development cycle, test their skills in marketing and competitive analysis, and know the satisfaction of having built a working and useful investment application by the end of the semester. The students got a unique opportunity to learn Web 2.0 skills and use a REST-based API, and students from different academic backgrounds got to see the benefit of building an integrated team with skills spanning IT and finance. The feedback from the Loyola students was overwhelmingly positive. (Note: Students will be required to open a TradeKing account to participate, but there will be no requirements that they fund this account.)

For Faculty:
The TradeKing Challenge provides faculty with an opportunity to develop their course syllabi in new and interesting ways. For example, the TradeKing Challenge can be embedded in course syllabi as a final semester project. This is a highly practical assignment, one that students can cite in job interviews and on their CVs. It can also enhance course content by allowing faculty to show their students the value of developing new ideas in a fast-changing and highly competitive online financial services environment.

How Will TradeKing Support Your Participation in the Challenge?
TradeKing will provide you and your students with:

 *   A complete "Challenge Steps" document, outlining the full Challenge program in a step-by-step format. This will include, for example, information on how to access and use the TradeKing API
 *   A microsite with complete information about the Challenge and private online forum for participants
 *   A dedicated Program Manager at TradeKing to answer questions and facilitate the process
 *   Continuous interaction with key developers and experts for the students through the forums
 *   Regularly scheduled conference calls (optional) with TradeKing to answer questions and help triage issues
 *   A mid-semester checkpoint visit or call from TradeKing with each school to ensure students are on track and to help course-correct where needed. TradeKing executives are willing to visit your school to meet with faculty and students to provide direct in-classroom information on the format of the challenge
 *   Documented judging workflow and process
What Will Students and Universities Win?
TradeKing has up to $100,000 in prize money budgeted for this Challenge. Prize money is planned for a winner from each of the 20 participating schools ($2,000), as well as at the divisional ($4,000) and national ($24,000) levels. The Professors and schools where the winning students are enrolled will themselves receive additional cash prizes: $500 paid directly to faculty at each of the 20 participating schools, $1,000 for each division winner (current plan is to pay this amount to your department as a research stipend), and $5,000 for the overall national winner (currently planned to be payable through your dean's office as a stipend to assist IT program development).

How Do You Participate?
Please notify us of your interest in participating no later than July 30, 2011 by emailing campuschallenge at tradeking.com<mailto:campuschallenge at tradeking.com>. Please attach you contact information along with the e-mail. Upon notification, TradeKing will provide you with the official Rules & Guidelines document for the competition. Again, there is no fee to enter.

Rules and Challenge guidelines are still being finalized and may change somewhat from the description given here once TradeKing's attorneys have provided final input. We will share the final and official Rules and Guidelines with interested schools soon, but did not want to wait to inform and excite you regarding this planned upcoming event.

A TradeKing representative will follow up on this email to answer any questions you might have, to determine your interest in participating, and to learn from any feedback you may have regarding our current plans for this Challenge as we work with schools and advisors to finalize the details. If necessary, begin to plan to make reference to the Challenge in your Fall syllabus. If helpful, we will provide you with class handouts to describe the Challenge to your students. In the meantime, feel free to contact Peter Laptewicz at TradeKing at PLaptewicz at tradeking.com or 1-877-495-5464 x4013 with more questions.

If you are not the ideal recipient of this invitation for your University or Department, please forward this email to that contact, or reply and let us know with whom we should speak.

We hope you'll take this opportunity to consider engaging your students in this unique and valuable opportunity. Thank you, and we look forward to speaking with you.

Sincerely,
[http://marketing.tradeking.com/images/email/youtube/don_sig.gif]
[http://marketing.tradeking.com/images/email/tklive/don_52x72.jpg]

Don Montanaro
Chairman and CEO
Email Don<mailto:don at tradeking.com>
Visit the Trader Network<http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe2e157271610d78741072&ls=fe0313747667047d73157176&m=fef511727d6d06&l=fe8d1674766c017872&s=fe2613737267047f761c78&jb=ffcf14&t=>

________________________________

(c) 2011 TradeKing. All rights reserved. Member FINRA<http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe2c157271610d78741074&ls=fe0313747667047d73157176&m=fef511727d6d06&l=fe8d1674766c017872&s=fe2613737267047f761c78&jb=ffcf14&t=> and SIPC<http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe2a157271610d78741076&ls=fe0313747667047d73157176&m=fef511727d6d06&l=fe8d1674766c017872&s=fe2613737267047f761c78&jb=ffcf14&t=>.

This email was sent by: (c) TradeKing | 13024 Ballantyne Corporate Place, Suite 500, Charlotte, NC, 28277, USA | Unsubscribe from our mailing list<http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe28157271610d78741078&ls=fe0313747667047d73157176&m=fef511727d6d06&l=fe8d1674766c017872&s=fe2613737267047f761c78&jb=ffcf14&t=>.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aisnet.org/pipermail/aisworld_lists.aisnet.org/attachments/20110725/2c3f2db0/attachment.html>