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over 7 years ago

Getting Started

It’s time to get started with the Alexa Skills Challenge powered by AWS Educate! Once you have officially registered, we’ll be sending you regular updates throughout the competition.

Main Requirement: Build (or update) and publish a skill that fits into one of the challenge categories:

  • Student Life - Such as finding student-friendly establishments, finding student jobs and internships, staying healthy, reducing stress, getting enough sleep, financial planning, and more.
  • Learning - Such as study assistants, class scheduling, classroom experience improvements, interacting with teachers/ other students, mitigating procrastination, and more.
  • Community - Such as connecting with other students, keeping in touch with friends and family, raising awareness on social issues affecting students, discovering campus events, activities, resources, and more.

 

NOTE: ALL participants must be 18+ years old, a current U.S. resident, AND an approved member of the AWS Educate program.

Submission Package: A skill description, video demo, and other information must be submitted on the Devpost website by Monday, April 1, 2019 at 5:00pm ET to be considered.

Certification: The skill must be submitted to the U.S. Alexa Skill Store by April 1, 2019 at 5pm ET and it must PASS certification by April 22, 2019 at 5pm ET to remain eligible.

 

  1. Register for the Alexa Skills for Students on Devpost (if you haven’t done so already).
  2. If you’re not already a member, sign up for AWS Educate. When applying, please be sure to use the email address issued to you by your school. If you do not have a .edu email address, additional verification may be required. The application review process can take up to 48 hours, so make sure you register ahead of time. Go to www.awseducate.com to enroll.
  3. Sign up for an Amazon Developer Account.
  4. Get a head start on your submission. Fill out the basic fields on the application form and familiarize yourself with the submission requirements. This will give you a good idea of what you'll need to put together. Remember: you can edit your submission as many times as you like before the deadline.
  5. Join the community. Thinking about buddying up? Visit the participants page to find and meet teammates. You can see who else is looking for a teammate, check out what’s in their portfolio, and send them a message to connect. Consider signing up for the competition Slack channel, too, where you can also meet other hackers and get your questions answered.
  6. Review the Resources page to learn more about the Alexa Skills Badge.
  7. Build your skill!
  8. Shoot your demo video and take screenshots of your functioning skill.
  9. Submit your skill for certification to the U.S. Skill Store AND submit your entry to Devpost at awseducate.devpost.com before 5:00pm ET on Monday, April 1st, 2019.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the hackathon, please post on the discussion forum.