AWS Young Builders Challenge announced for school students in India

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced the AWS Young Builders Challenge, an initiative focused on providing school students in India an opportunity to understand and explore computer science, cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI). With cloud computing being a foundation for digital transformation and innovation, and AI poised to disrupt industries around the world, it is important for the upcoming generation to be familiar with these technologies from an early age.

The AWS Young Builders Challenge is an initiative to enable school students in India to develop an early understanding and adoption of cloud computing and AI, inspire design and computational thinking, and help the rising generation develop a scientific calibre at a young age. This initiative is being organized with support from the Ministry of Education – Innovation Cell (Govt. of India), Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) – Niti Aayog, and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). It is also supported by Code.org for learning content and project building tools.

The AWS Young Builders Challenge invites schools to help their students build innovative and creative projects on the theme, ‘How can artificial intelligence (AI) change the future of India?’. Students need to submit their ideas focused on one of the sub-themes – education, healthcare, agriculture, transportation, and others. The challenge is open for participation to all schools across India; students studying in classes 6 to 12 are eligible to participate. Once a school is registered on the event website, they will receive learning resources from AWS, AIM and Code.org on the topics of cloud computing and AI, to be shared with participating students. Students need to complete the learning module and then proceed to build their projects. Schools will evaluate the student entries based on parameters as per the AWS Young Builders Challenge, and submit their top two projects for further assessment. An external jury will evaluate entries in the national round and entries from the top 10 schools across India will be presented in a live virtual showcase ceremony on 15th November, 2021.

The top 10 schools will win a virtual artificial intelligence/ machine learning (AI/ ML) lab sponsored by AWS for one year, trophies, Amazon vouchers, and a direct entry to the Smart India Hackathon (SIH) juniors track, to be conducted Ministry of Education – Innovation Cell (Government of India) in mid-2022. Additional awards will be presented to the top 100 schools, top 3 schools with maximum submissions, and to the top 3 entries voted as public favourites. All students with eligible entries will receive participation certificates

The AWS Young Builders Challenge begins on October 18th, 2021, and entries will be accepted until November 5th, 2021. The showcase ceremony will be held on November 15th, 2021.