The Atos IT Challenge kicks off in 25 universities as the business technologists hunt for the IT stars of the future

London, UK - Atos, an international IT services company and Worldwide IT Partner for the Olympic Games, today launches its inaugural IT Challenge. It is a competition looking for the IT talents of the future from 25 universities based in France, Germany, India, Netherlands, Spain, and the UK.

As business technologists who power progress, Atos is encouraging the next generation, to start coding, drafting, sketching and prototyping smart mobility applications in teams of between two and five people, mentored by members of the Atos Scientific Community - a global network of around 90 of the best business technologists within Atos. The winning team will be announced in May 2012 and each member of the overall winning team will receive a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The contest aims to foster and encourage innovation and will take place every two years to coincide with the Winter and Summer Olympic Games. The theme for the first Atos IT Challenge is Smart Mobility and sets out to find new, innovative and useful context aware applications that can be used anywhere, anytime and on any device to add value to a business or an individual.

Smart Mobility is set to revolutionise how organizations operate and communicate with their employees, customers and stakeholders. Ubiquitous connectivity, cloud based services and new generation mobile devices will facilitate the emergence of context aware applications that understand the user’s location, presence, community, device type, network bandwidth combined with their personal or business preferences. Such Smart Mobility applications will have the intelligence to combine this real time awareness to adjust the user’s experience to their context rather than the static pre-programmed experience available in the smart phone application stores today.

Gilles Grapinet, Senior Executive Vice President, Global Functions at Atos, said: “As business technologists, we have launched the IT Challenge to give the digitally native generation of today the chance to write the IT story of tomorrow. We believe this competition will be a fantastic learning experience for the students, the universities and ourselves. We are excited to see how the students will bring their knowledge and experience into Smart Mobility applications that are both innovative and commercially viable.”

Finalist prize winners will be awarded an Atos Diploma demonstrating outstanding achievement and the chance to apply for highly sought after internships at Atos. The prize does not stop there, the overall winners will also win a trip of a lifetime to the London 2012 Olympic Games. The prestigious prize will include return flights, highly sought after Olympic tickets, accommodation and a behind-the-scenes tour including a visit to the Technology Operations Centre, presentations and meetings with Atos executives as well as an E-tablet.

Teams will make their initial submissions by December 2011 and 15 shortlisted teams will be announced on December 15th; the three finalists in April 2012 and the overall winner at an awards ceremony in May 2012.

The preliminary list of participating universities includes:
France (9):
SUPELEC (Gif sur Yvette/Paris) ; ESIEE (Marnes la Vallée/Paris) ; INSA Rennes, ENSEEIHT (Toulouse) ; INSA Lyon ; UST Lille ; ENSEIRB-MATMECA (Bordeaux) ; ENSIMAG (Grenoble) and UPMC (Paris).
Germany (1):
DHDW Manheim
India (4):
College of Engineering Pune; NIT Rourkela; NIT Surat; and Pune Institute of Computer Technology (PICT).
Netherlands (5):
Universiteit Twente; Universiteit van Tilburg; Fontys Hogeschool Eindhoven; Hanze Hogeschool Groningen and Haagse Hogeschool.
Spain (5):
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid; Universidad Carlos III; Universidad de Sevilla; Universidad Politécnica de Barcelona and Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.
UK (3):
Imperial College London, Warwick University and Nottingham University.

The IT Challenge forms part of the Atos Wellbeing@work initiative and supports its objective to encourage and develop talent. Each year Atos recruits around 7000 engineers globally.

Individual prizes:
The Jury will select 1 winner and 2 finalists:

1st Prize- Gold Medal:

- Diploma
- Olympic experience at the 2012 London Olympic Games for the winning team and University Sponsor (including return flights, tickets for some events, accommodation and “behind the scenes tours“ (visit to Technology Operating Centre, presentations and meetings with Atos and IOC top executives)
- E-tablet

2nd Prize – Silver Medal:

- Diploma
- E- tablet

3rd Prize- Bronze Medal:

- Diploma
- E-tablet

Prizes for all participants:
All participants in the IT Challenge will also receive a set of gifts to thank them for their participation in the contest and will be invited to apply for an internship to work as part of the Atos team in the delivery and the operation of the IT solution for the London 2012 Olympic Games (between June-September 2012).
For information on the Atos-London Olympics internship opportunities and how to apply, please visit the “Atos-London Olympics internships” section on the website.

About Atos
Atos is an international information technology services company with annual revenues of €8.7 billion and 78,500 employees in 42 countries. Serving a global client base, it delivers hi-tech transactional services, consulting and technology services, systems integration and managed services. Atos is focused on business technology that powers progress and helps organizations to create their firm of the future. It is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic and Paralympic Games and is quoted on the Paris Eurolist Market. Atos operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting & Technology Services, Atos Worldline and Atos Worldgrid.

More information about the contest (rules, prizes, partner universities, the Coaches & the Jury, smart mobility, Atos and the London 2012 Olympic Games http://atositchallenge.net/