Marvell to Fund Next Generation Education Apps

NEW YORK, Sept. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- In its ongoing commitment to improving America's education system through the adoption of new technology, Marvell, one of the world's largest chipmakers, announced today that it's launching a competition to recognize and fund the most clever new education apps for classroom tablets. The challenge invites ambitious, intelligent software developers around the world to create apps that transform the way students learn. Three winners will share prize money totaling $100,000, along with access to Marvell's considerable engineering resources for support and testing.

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The $100K Challenge, unveiled at the NBC News' Education Nation summit, is a part of Marvell's Mobylize campaign, the company's long-range commitment to mobilizing technology innovation, speeding education innovation and bringing to students everywhere the inexpensive yet powerful tools they need to learn, connect and collaborate in new ways.

The campaign and the $100K Challenge were inspired by Marvell's new Moby tablet reference design. The classroom-friendly Moby tablet reference design is a high-performance, low-power device based on Marvell's ARMADA™ application processor and Google's Android™ operating system. It's the platform for which developers who enter the $100K Challenge will design their applications — and it's perfect for the part. It's equipped with 1080p HD, advanced 3D capabilities and full Flash internet. For developers, the Moby tablet reference design provides far-reaching possibilities. For students, it opens vast horizons, at a price school districts can afford.

"Our aim is to revolutionize the delivery of education in America," said Tom Hayes, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. "We believe this contest will help focus the immense talents of software developers on e-learning initiatives, resulting in new ways for students, parents, teachers and administrators to communicate, collaborate and advance education."

Judges in the $100K Challenge are looking specifically for applications that can be used in teaching math, science, vocabulary, spelling and other courses common from kindergarten to 12th grade. Application should feature an online component, connecting to the web for the best user experience. It should enable opportunities for social learning, so students can easily collaborate with other students. It should offer support for many languages, reflecting the diversity in schools around the world. It should leverage the Moby tablet reference design's multitouch interface. And the application's size should be less than 512MB.

Developers interested in entering the contest should log on to www.mobylize.org for initial entry guidelines. Submissions will be accepted October 10, 2010 through November 10, 2010, after which each application will be evaluated by an independent panel of judges, who are selected based on their accomplishments in the fields of technology and education.

Winners will be announced at a reception sponsored by Marvell at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, January 6 through 9, 2011 in Las Vegas. The grand-prize winner will receive $50,000, with $30,000 going to second place and $20,000 to third. All winners will enjoy the support of Marvell's extensive engineering infrastructure on the way to finalizing their apps.

About Marvell

Marvell (Nasdaq: MRVL) is a world leader in the development of storage, communications and consumer silicon solutions. Marvell's diverse product portfolio includes switching, transceiver, communications controller, wireless and storage solutions that power the entire communications infrastructure, including enterprise, metro, home and storage networking. As used in this release, the term "Marvell" refers to Marvell Technology Group Ltd. and its subsidiaries. For more information, visit www.marvell.com.

Marvell and the M logo are registered trademarks of Marvell and/or its affiliates. ARMADA is trademark of Marvell and/or its affiliates. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

SOURCE Marvell