Google and Snapchat team up on geofilter coding contest for teens
Five finalists will go to TEDWomen and compete by creating a Snapchat Lens.
Snapchat is teaming up with Google's Made With Code initiative to try and encourage teenagers to get into computer science. Teens aged 13 - 18 can build a Snapchat geofilter with Google's Blockly coding system for kids, then submit it to win a trip to the TEDWomen conference in New Orleans and mentoring sessions from Google and Snapchat engineers to create a Lens, an augmented reality filter for your photos. The five finalists' Lenses will be judged at the conference for a chance to go live in the Snapchat app, along with a trip to Los Angeles for a private tour of the Snap, Inc. and Google offices.
"With this contest, Made with Code and Snap will help teens nationwide see that the things they love, like Snapchat, are made with code," writes Google's Elizabeth Reid in a blog post. "Teens are already Snapping. Let's get them coding, too." The idea here is to get teens creating, not just consuming, the apps and services they use every day. The contest, dubbed #MyFutureMe, will be judged by a host of tech heavy-hitters, including Google's CFO Ruth Porat, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, activist Malala Yousafzai and NASA astronaut Dr. Yvonne Cagle.
Entries must be submitted by October 8th; Snap Inc. will notify finalists during the week of October 16th.
