Contest Rules

Eligibility

Entrants must be or have been enrolled in at least one class at either UNM or CNM within the past year. An unofficial transcript from UNM or CNM will be required from finalists.

DEADLINES

  1. Register to participate in the contest by October 31st, 2025, at 11:59 PM. No late registrations will be accepted*.
  2. Submit your eligible submission with all required application documentation (as described in the Technical Score parameters below). An eligible submission is defined as follows: “an new, unpublished application that depicts functions in prototype or demonstration form, and is submitted by the first technical scoring deadline of November 7, 2025 at 11:59 PM." No late submissions will be accepted*.  Any questions, email appcontest@unm.edu.
  3. The applicants who are selected as finalists after the Technical Scoring (includes Extra Technical Points) will be notified to attend a mandatory practice session and then submit final presentation slides by Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 by noon.  No late presentations after this date will be accepted*.

*if you have extenuating circumstances, please contact appcontest@unm.edu  before the deadline.

Scoring Parameters

Apps will be judged in two stages. The first stage is a review by the IT technical team according to the technical score parameters below. The top ten technical finalists will advance to the second stage for the presentation pitch delivered in front of the judges, where those apps will be scored according to the presentation score below. The final score that determines first, second and third place will be the combination of the technical score, the extra points, plus the presentation score.

Technical Score

(pre-filled by the technical reviewers) A maximum of 25 points will be awarded for each of the following four scoring parameters.

  1. PURPOSE, AUDIENCE, FUNCTIONS, PATHWAY TO SATISFACTION: Introduce these required elements above in a word doc, PDF, or any rich text in an email attachment.  DO NOT submit via a link.
  2. PROPOSED TECHNICAL ASPECTS: Describe the technical components (APIs, feeds, libraries, models, third party services to be incorporated). Also include an architecture diagram using an application such Visio, Lucidchart, Excalidraw, etc. in an email attachment (a legible screenshot is acceptable) to introduce these required elements above. Required artifact is word doc or PDF or any rich text document sent in an email attachment.  DO NOT submit via a link.
  3. SECURITY: Describe the security considerations in the app around private data (e.g. credit card numbers) or other sensitive information. Required artifact is word doc or PDF or any rich text document to introduce these required elements sent in an email attachment.  DO NOT submit via a link.
  4. PROTOTYPE: Design in high fidelity wireframe or prototype form, clearly demonstrating user flows and application primary use case functionality. Required artifact is a link to the actual prototype. Include a prototype of the important screens within the application (i.e. using rapid-prototyping software such as Figma - students can get the full-featured software at no cost here:  https://www.figma.com/education/). Make sure that the technical judges have access to this prototype (use the “share” feature, then set permissions to viewable by anyone with the link).

  Extra Technical Points

Contestants are highly encouraged (these points often make a difference in determining the winner at each level) to  earn extra points in the following ways:

  • 5 extra credit points – Participate in the kickoff session September 18 th, 2025.
  • 5 extra credit points - Attend a prototyping or other meet up session, date and time TBD.
  • A maximum of 10 extra technical points can be earned.

Presentation Score

(Presentation Day Judge Scoring) A maximum of 25 points will be awarded for each of the following four scoring parameters.

  1. Definition and analysis of problem addressed by app and adherence to App Contest Mission Statement
  2. Originality and coherence in design and experience
  3. Functionality and features found in the app
  4. Professionalism in communication and presentation

Submission Criteria

For complete details please see the  Submission Process page.

Judging & Winners

After submitting your prototype and other required materials by the November 7 th deadline for your First Stage Technical Scoring and Determination of the 10 Finalists process, the finalists will be contacted to schedule a Presentation Day mandatory practice session where you will give your draft presentation for your app and ideas to the program team for edits and critique.  This is meant to help you get ready for Presentation Day!  It is highly recommended that ALL your team members attend the practice session because the feedback you could incorporate might make a critical difference in your performance and presentation score!  You will have until November 19 th at noon to edit and enhance your final presentation which needs to be emailed on or before this date.

On Presentation Day and Awards, you/your team will give your Presentation Day pitch to the presentation judges, which are business and community leaders in New Mexico as well as other states.  They will not have seen any of your materials or drafts, so your Presentation Score is entirely dependent on how well you present your pitch in-person to these judges!  Practice is essential. Y ou will have 8-minutes ONLY for presentation, and 4-minutes ONLY for Q&A by the judges. You will be TIMED!!!! You will NOT be allowed to exceed the allotted time. You will not be allowed to continue presenting during your Q&A allotment of time. Judges will give you/your team a Presentation Score based on the above Presentation Score parameters and then deliberate for final scoring.

NOTE: Your FINAL SCORE will be comprised of your Technical Score, Your Extra Technical Points and Your Presentation Score.  The winner will be the person/team with highest total, therefore, doing your best to achieve the highest score possible in each of these three categories is essential to earning the highest award level!

All Presentation Day participants will be required to attend the Awards Ceremony, which follows the last presentation at Presentation Day at approximately 4:00 pm. More detail is given in the  Submission Process section.

Intellectual Property and Ownership

We intend that the intellectual and commercial property right remain with the entrants and winners. However, we ask to have rights to use images, names and screen shots for marketing and promotional purposes.

Need Help

If you have questions or technical challenges, please contact  appcontest@unm.edu by email and your question can be answered, clarified or forwarded to a subject matter expert for follow up.