Student Design Contest

2025 – INTERNATIONAL STUDENT DESIGN CONTEST – SIXTH EDITION

Call for ideas and proofs of concept

This call targets students (bachelor, master and PhD students). It is open to individuals and groups. Differently from the general conference call for papers, under this call it is expected to collect innovative ideas, solutions and/or proofs of concept that can be presented and demonstrated in different formats, i.e. prototypes, demos, videos, etc. and are not necessarily described in the form of a ‘traditional’ paper. 

The contest procedure is organised in two phases: in the first phase students are invited to submit their proposals. A Jury selects the best proposals and invites 3 finalists to demonstrate their ideas/proofs of concept at SLERD 2025. The second phase takes place at the conference: the winner (individual or group) is awarded with 500 €. 

TOPICS AND GOAL

Proposals submitted to this call are expected to address the same general themes of the call for papers of the conference, namely:

  • places for smart education, 
  • people in place centered design for smart education, 
  • supportive learning technologies and tools for smart education.

You can refer to the call for papers for the sub-topics. 

We expect students wishing to take part in the contest, to propose new ideas and/or find solutions that address one (or more) of the above mentioned themes and topics.    

PROCEDURE AND AWARDS 

In the first phase of the contest, students are invited to submit their ideas, solutions, proofs of concept. 

Participation is open to all University students: bachelor, master and PhD. 

Proposals can be submitted by individuals or groups. Groups cannot exceed 5 members. 

A Jury selects the best proposals and invites the authors to present the proposal at the conference as finalists, by giving a short presentation/demonstration.
Up to 2 students per group can be invited to attend SLERD 2025 for free as representatives of the design group that developed the proposals (no registration fees are due).

On the basis of the presentations/ demonstrations the Jury will announce the winner of the contest.

ASLERD will promote dissemination of the 3 best proofs of concept/ideas on its website, on social media and through its mailing-list.

The Jury reserves itself the possibility to propose the proofs of concept/ideas submitted for the publication in a special section of IxD&A devoted to SLERD 2024 contest. 

HOW TO SUBMIT 

In the first phase, students interested in participating in the contest have to submit their proposals in any of the following formats:

  • Demo or prototype (accompanied by a short document describing the idea behind the artefact and providing the necessary technical details, see below)
  • Video (no longer than 3 minutes)
  • Abstracts (textual description that should be no longer than 3 A4 pages, sketches and figures included). 

Independently on the chosen format, proposals should contain the following basic information:

  • Why (give a rationale for your proposal, define the problem you are addressing)
  • What (make it clear what you are proposing and make the innovative character evident) 
  • How (provide details about implementation, give technical details if necessary)
  • For whom (beneficiaries /targets of your proposal and expected impact).

Submissions should be sent by email to: slerd25-contest@utt.fr 

The selected finalists should present or demonstrate their proposals at the conference by means of the most appropriate technology. 

EVALUATION PROCESS

Criteria for the selection process will include:

  • the relevance to the topics of the call,
  • the clarity of the problem setting and of the proposed idea, 
  • the innovativeness of the proposed solution, 
  • the impact that the idea is likely to produce on the smartness of learning ecosystems, 
  • the people centered perspective, 
  • the viability of the idea. 

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission of proposals: 15th April 2025 

Selection of the 3 finalists (max): 6th May 2025

Presentation and demo at SLERD 2025 and winner announcement: 12th or 13th June 2025

JURY

Gabriella Dodero
Carlo Giovannella
Donatella Persico

ASLERD CONTACTS

This edition of the student contest is coordinated by Stavros Nikou. For information and any questions on the contest please write an email at: slerd25-contest@utt.fr 

WINNERS OF PREVIOUS EDITIONS

2024: Rob Schmidt (Athabasca University – Canada) Authorship Forensics Portal
finalist: Islam Barchouch (INSA, Rennes – France)

2023: Aivo Olev (Tallinn University) Speech transcription editing and speech annotation user interface.
finalists: Ekaterina Krivich (Tallin University), Juri Mets (Tallin University), Davide Parrilli (Universidade Europeia), Sara Peretti (L’Aquila University), Valerio Righetti (Uninettuno), Darja Tokranova (Tallin University)

2019: Eftychia Roumelioti (Free University of Bozen) Augmenting Outdoor Environment Objects

2018: Bibeg Limbu (Open University NL), Augmentation of practice with expert performance data: Presenting a calligraphy use case.

2017: Raffaele Di Fuccio (University of Naples Federico II), A Smell of Smartness in Education: the Multiactivity Board