AWS Start-Up Challenge For 2009

We're kicking off the third annual AWS Start-Up Challenge now.

We're looking for the hottest and coolest start-ups and start-up ideas. Developers and entrepreneurs in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Israel are encouraged to enter for a chance to win $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in AWS credits, mentoring sessions from AWS technical experts, and AWS Premium Support Gold for one year.

To enter, fill out and submit the online application by August 26, 2009. The judging panel will review all of the application and choose the seven best, based on originality and creativity, likelihood of long-term success, monetization strategy, quality of proposal, and effective use of AWS.

The finalists will be announced in October. At that time we will post a video of each finalist and invite the public to vote for their favorite. Then we'll fly all of the finalists to Silicon Valley where they'll present their ideas to the judges' panel during the day, and pitch them to a live audience of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that night, where the winner will be chosen, annouced, and feted.

All runner-up finalists will receive $5,000 in AWS service credits; all entrants with qualified submissions will receive $25 credits.

The Challenge finalist with the most creative monetization model using the Amazon Flexible Payments Service (FPS) or Simple Pay from Amazon Payments will win $10,000 in combined cash and Amazon Payments credits. All finalists using these services will receive $2,500 in Amazon Payments credits. Read more here.

Questions? Check out the contest rules, review the prizes, and scan the FAQ. You may also want to watch the videos we made for the 2007 and 2008 finalists.

-- Jeff;

Comments

[cstar]

Will developers from France be allowed at some point (like 2010) ?

[Alex]

I feel this needs some clarification as the competition is open to developers and entrepreneurs in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Israel but Amazon Flexible Payments Service (FPS) is only available to merchants in the United States.

Thanks,

Alex.

[Ed Corkery]

No New Zealand? Or in fact any of the other English-speaking countries?

[Mathieu Mantrant O'Dowd]

Hi there, we're from France too and we have a good project and international team. Should we cheat to enter ? or is the door open ??

[Terence Gannon]

When I saw the Challenge last year, I was disappointed to see Canadian entrants were not allowed, and brought that point up with them at the time. I was told it would be 'considered in the future'. You can imagine my disappointment when I read this year's contest is open to 'legal residents of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia, the United Kingdom, Germany and Israel'. Seems a little arbitrary. Perhaps AWS can provide some explanation as the criteria they're using to determine which countries can enter, and which cannot?

[Chuck Schreiner]

I am trying to submit out entry to the AWS Startup contest and am getting this message repeatedly: "There has been an error while submitting your data. Please try again later. "

Any suggestions? Thanks.

[Siri Eklund]

I keep getting the same error and have been trying to submit for hours. Please help!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/html-forms-controller/aws-partner-registration-2009/submit?_encoding=UTF8

[lathan tolbert]

I am also getting an error posting submitting my application. Will there be an extension to the deadline? I've been trying periodically all night.

[Andreas]

I am still having the same problem, can someone from AWS help?