(MTEC) — The Marianas Tourism Education Council is reminding all middle school and high school students in The Marianas that submission deadline for its MTEC Tourism App Challenge is Monday, Feb. 6.
The contest challenges students to design an app for visitors to the Marianas destination. The contest goals are to first, to enhance tourists’ understanding of the island community, landscape, hospitality businesses and other service elements that the Northern Mariana Islands is proud to offer. The second goal is to provide accurate and timely information about the place, people, organizations, and services the Marianas has to offer as a destination.
“We encourage our young people to test their wings with the app development and give this challenge a shot,” said MTEC Acting Chairwoman Vicky Benavente. “As recommended by our MTEC Board Member Dr. Galvin Guerrero, there are a ton of wonderful resources for young app developers at commonsense.org, and we look forward to seeing the submissions.”
Students may compete as individuals or in teams of up to three students. Each participating individual or team shall submit only one app for competition. The deadline to submit is 11:59 p.m. ChST, Feb. 6, 2023. Cash prizes will be awarded to the team leader: 1st place, $500; 2nd place, $300, and 3rd place, $200.
The evaluation criteria include originality of the app idea, creativity of the app design, mobile user experience, and demonstration of indigenous cultures, traditions and/or values. The app should be developed for mobile operating systems (Android OS or iOS) and be installable on a mobile smartphone or tablet device.
The app should have a search function and an island map for navigation, in addition to the functionalities and design elements created by the contestant(s).
To submit:
• Develop a video (up to 5 minutes) that explains the app’s purpose, functionalities, target audience, coding language, how-to-use steps;
• Upload the video to YouTube or any other video hosting platform, and generate a URL that is accessible for the public without sign-in requirement or password protection; and
• Email the URL, along with team leader and team member names, school name, email and mailing addresses, and contact phone number to yunzi.zhang@marianas.edu
The email subject line should be: MTEC App Challenge_LastNameofTeamLeader (e.g. MTEC App Challenge_Smith)
For more information, contact Northern Marianas College Associate Professor of Hospitality Management Dr. Yunzi Zhang at yunzi.zhang@marianas.edu or Marianas Visitors Authority Community Projects Specialist Jack Aranda at jaranda@mymarianas.com or (670) 664-3200/1.
