App contest offers award for women-only teams

Article here. Excerpt:

'UNM is preparing to launch its third annual mobile app contest, partnering with CNM for the first time in a collaboration that has brought innovations to the competition, including an award for teams composed exclusively of women.

The “Women in Technology” award is up for grabs for female applicants to the contest, whether they apply individually or as a team. So far the contest has four such applicants, according to Manikantam Chitturi, the contest coordinator.

“We thought of encouraging women to be involved more,” Chitturi said.

The award is $2,500, to be given to an individual contestant or divided evenly among members of a winning team. For comparison, the contest’s overall first-place winner will get $5,000; second-place, $2,500; and third-place $1,000, according to the contest’s webpage.

Chitturi said that the award is incentive for women to enter the contest, as there were no female contestants last year.

“Partly, this is the input of CNM,” said Moira Gerety, deputy CIO of IT at UNM. “Some of the funding they’re using for the program comes from contributors and funders who are interested in diversity.”'