A contest to develop open source software for vehicles will award $32,000 in prizes next July. The 2006 International Open Source Embedded Software Competition (IOSESC) is sponsored by MontaVista, Taiwan National Science Council, and the Open Source Software Foundry (OSSF), and is the first of a series of contests planned by the OSSF to promote open source embedded application development.

Entries are limited to software for use in bicycles, motorcycles, buses, and cars, such as:

• Global position and navigation
  
• Geographical information and traveler advisories
  
• Wireless access and vehicle-to-vehicle communication
  
• Fuel economy and trip planning
  
• Kinematics, diagnostics, and maintenance
  
• Security and privacy
  
• Vehicle, rider, and pedestrian safety
  
• Entertainment and information

Competitors must submit 5,000 word English-language “product” proposals by January 10. Proposals should include development and quality assurance plans. Ten to fifteen preliminary winners will announced on Feb. 15th, and invited to revise their papers for publication in a special issue of Journal of Information Science and Engineering.

Preliminary winners will then have four months to develop their products, before submitting software and documentation for the final round of judging on Jun. 10th. They will be reimbursed for hardware expenses up to 15,000 NTD (~$450), and up to five preliminary winners will receive MontaVista Linux and development tools.

Final submissions will be judged on:

• Utility and usability (10%)
• Architecture, design, and implementation (20%)
• Creativity and originality (20%)
• How effectively they make use of existing open source components (20%)
• How much attention is paid to quality assurance (20%)
• Documentation (10%)

Final winners will be announced on July 10th, and awarded cash prizes that include:

• Best products
  • Gold: 600,000 NTD (New Taiwan Dollars, about $18,000)
  • Silver: 250,000 NTD (~$7,500)
  • Bronze: 125,000 NTD (~$3,750)
• Best papers
  • Overall: 33,000 NTD (~$1,000)
  • Best grad paper 33,000 NTD (~$1,000)
  • Best undergrad paper 33,000 NTD (~$1,000)

Additional contest details are here.

 
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