Fwd: [smalltalk-research] Re: Crowdfunding for Smalltalk Competition Scholarships

On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 3:49 AM, Richard Eng <[hidden email]> wrote:

I've completely revised my plans for the Smalltalk competition...

There are 3 key modifications:

1. Smaller prizes – this allows us to stretch the prize money over several years' worth of contests

Good - but I would run the gofundme campaign around the lower total amount for one year. This is a level I feel comfortable contributing to a stranger.  Of course administration costs are then proportionally greater, but maybe sponsorship can help that (see below)

 

1. The contest will be held at various participating secondary schools, supervised by teachers – this solves the volunteers and venues problem

Just to dig into details, how will you define a "participating" school?  Have you already had some feedback from some teachers?   As part of your strategy, you might fund provision of a printed copy of these important books to "participating" schools:

* Valloud - A Mentoring Course on Smalltalk (a "must" read to get the Smalltalk philosopy, recommended if you haven't already read it) http://www.lulu.com/shop/andres-valloud/a-mentoring-course-on-smalltalk/paperback/product-3788890.html

* Pharo By Example - updated for Pharo 4.

Actually, maybe you even consider replacing third prize with 10 or more winners of a prize pack with these books - since this both stretches the money further to more winners, and also education is the best way to spread the word of Smalltalk, and the books can be shared wider again by the winners.  Actually, maybe this would be one of the more favourable backdoor outcomes, as a way to select leading young programmers to indoctrinate into the Smalltalk way.  Others will want to emulate them.

 

1. The date has been moved so that it doesn't clash with midterms, and it still gives students sufficient time to plan ahead for college (knowing whether or not they have scholarship money)

The length of the competition has also been shortened from 6 hours to 3. The former was probably too long for students to cope with.

You need to get some ideas for competition puzzles well in advance, and run some pilots in individual schools.  You can publish these puzzles some everyone gets the chance to practice and the pilot schools are not at a great advantage.

 

Here's the new flyer:

I still need judges for the competition. Judges will need to grade the Smalltalk assignment for correctness and accuracy. I'm not sure how to find these judges. This Smalltalk forum seems to be sparsely inhabited, so that may be why I'm getting very little response. Where else can I ask for volunteers??

Search for Canadian smalltalk job postings [1] and contact these companies directly.  Such a competition could directly benefit them to supply potential future employees (often a problem for Smalltalk companies).  By supplying judges, they get to survey the talent.  Also, industry involvement is an additional incentive for students - being exposed to potential employers, and the possibility of part time work during their studies.   A visit to their offices could be an auxiliary prize (such as it is with google competitions, though tis not so sexy as google).  They may even sponsor, which apart from a direct cash benefit can add a credible logo to the flyer.

https://smalltalkjobs.wordpress.com/ [1]

good luck with it.

cheers -ben 

On Thursday, 26 February 2015 22:30:02 UTC-5, Richard Eng wrote:

http://www.gofundme.com/nb4k5c

Crowdfunding is also a good way to market Smalltalk!