IIT-Knapp Entrepreneurship Center

How to organize a successful iPhone App Challenge Weekend

Step 1. Find someone who’s in the Mobile App Business

Meet Phil Leslie. He’s friendly, he’s smart and he’s very good at keeping track of expense reports. And you can be too with his new software ProOnGo. All you need to do is take a snapshot of your receipts on your smartphone and his software takes care of the rest. Phil happily offered to dedicate a weekend to work with students interested in developing Mobile Apps. He even offered his own Mac stations for the students to work on.

Step 2. Brain-soaring session

A wise man told me once that rather than brainSTORMing, you should brainSOAR to new heights. This is what Phil and I did 2 weeks before the iPhone App Weekend. We discussed logistics, players involved and most importantly, the app we wanted the students to design. It had to be realistic enough for students with zero iPhone programming experience to code within a weekend, yet practical enough for people to use. Thus, the IIT Navigator app idea was born – an application for visitors to IIT to find their way around the Main Campus.

Step 3. Find hungry students.

Hungry to learn. We put up a form on our new website allowing students to register and an essay asking them why they want to be involved in Mobile App Development. With minimal advertising (Facebook and IIT Today) and only the promise of one-on-one coaching with an industry expert we received 25 applications in 5 days. After a relatively simple programming test that was sent out to the applicants, we filtered the students down to 6 candidates and invited them to participate in the Iphone App Challenge Weekend.

Step 4. Create structure

We broke the team down to 3 subteams based on individual preferences – the GPS Team, the UI Team and the Database Team. Phil created technical guides for each team that was sent to them a few days ahead of the event. Val Scarlata, IIT’s Web and Communications Specialist offered her design expertise to create iPhone elements that the students could use.

Step 5. Setting the right tone

Through Phil’s connections we were able to get Alwar Narayanan, the Director of Research and Emerging Technologies to set the tone for the weekend by giving a small talk regarding the future of Mobile App Development worldwide.

Step 6. Code till you drop

Or until 6.00 pm Sunday night when the Weekend App Challenge officially ended. The app should be available for download from the App Store soon (i.e. whenever Apple decides to approve it)