The winners of the CDC Flu App Challenge have been posted!
Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to all participants for your hard work.

 

Prizes

First Place

$15,000

Second Place

$10,000

Third Place

$5,000

People's Choice

$2,500

Honorable mention (5)

$500

Judges will have the discretion of awarding up to five "honorable mention" prizes at $500 each.

About the Challenge

Winners announced (view all dates)

Using Technology to Fight the Flu

Applications and technology make it easier to communicate critical information about the flu and its impact. We’re looking for an innovative use of technology to raise awareness of influenza and/or educate consumers on ways to prevent and treat the flu.

We're challenging you to create new ways to use technology, be it for:

  • the web
  • a personal computer
  • a mobile handheld device
  • any platform broadly accessible to the open Internet.

You pick the technology and design the idea, we’ll provide the data

CDC compiles a wealth of data that often go unnoticed by the technical community. The mission of the CDC Flu App Challenge is to promote healthy behavior for flu prevention by introducing the software development community to those resources, and generating useful and innovative solutions with those data. We're requiring that you use at least one of the following datasets in your technical solution:

In addition you can draw on data and resources from any other public sources online - related to flu or otherwise. We anticipate winning entries to draw on one or more of the CDC data sources, but combine them with any interesting array of resources.

What's in it for you?

Applications that best satisfy the competition criteria will receive cash prizes up to $15,000, and the opportunity to have their apps featured on the CDC website. Applicants are encouraged to mashup CDC data with any other publicly-accessible data feeds from around the web, and to be creative in exploring approaches for realizing the goals.

Learn more about influenza prevention.

Judges

Mark Smolinski

Mark Smolinski

Director, Global Health Threats, Skoll Global Threats Fund

Peter Speyer

Peter Speyer

Director of Data Development, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)

Jim Cashel

Jim Cashel

Chairman, Forum One Communications

Maureen S Marshall

Maureen S Marshall

Health Communications Specialist, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Fred Smith

Fred Smith

Technology Team Lead, Electronic Media Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Judging Criteria

Data Criteria

Does the app or game use a combination of creative and relevant data sets including at least one from data.CDC.gov? (20%)

Technical Implementation

Is the app implemented in a functional and elegant fashion? (20%)

Education Criteria

Does the software apply best practices for health and risk communication, as cited on www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/HealthBasics? (20%)

Creativity

Is the app creative? Interesting? Fun to use? (40%)

How to Enter

Contestants must register for the contest on this website by creating an account between April 6, 2011 and May 27, 2011. Registrants will receive an email to verify their account and may then enter their submissions via the "Post a Submission" tab.

  1. Submissions may be any kind of software tool, be it for the web, a personal computer, a mobile handheld device, console, or any platform broadly accessible to the open Internet.
  2. Submissions must be made available free of charge to the public throughout the Competition period, and for one year after the announcement of winners.
  3. If the software tool is not accessible by the Administrator and Judges for review purposes via the web with a URL or mobile app store, a link to a video of the working tool may be submitted.  In such case, the Administrator has the right to request access to the Submission in person or via any reasonable manner to verify any criteria about the software tool.
  4. A Submission may be disqualified if it does not function as expressed in the description.
  5. All Submissions must be available for public use and evaluation by May 27, 2011 for public voting and judging purposes.
  6. Once a Submission is made, the Contestant cannot make any changes or alterations to the Submission until the judging is complete. The approximate date by which the judging will be complete is June 8th.