Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) is looking for volunteers to serve as judges for this year’s K-12 InVenture Prize Competition. In the competition, K-12 students from across the state compete in teams against their peers, challenged to identify real-world problems and design novel solutions through analysis, creativity, and the engineering design process.

Volunteer judges are crucial to the competition, providing critical feedback to this next generation of engineers and entrepreneurs as they compete amongst their peers and refine their ideas. Previous judges have included Georgia Tech students, staff, faculty and industry partners, including local teachers.

“For me, the most important part of being a judge is celebrating our students’ ideas and recognizing that they do have ideas and encouraging them to think of clever things and things that interest them,” said Dr. Raymond Vito, a long-time volunteer judge and former Vice Provost and Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. “I think the adult recognition of what they have done is as big as anything. I also have always thought that it is important for students to understand STEM education and what it’s all about and so this is one way to get the message out.”

Judges are needed for November Mock Pitch review, in which students from schools across Georgia present their ideas for early feedback. The Mock Pitch review process is online and asynchronous. Judges can complete the pitches whenever they have free time.

Judging for Mock Pitch starts on November 17. Sign up to judge Mock Pitch here.

For more information on this year’s K-12 InVenture prize competition, click here

--Randy Trammell, CEISMC Communications