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    QtAthon_hero_bg3 (1)

    Coding Competition for Students – Online

    Qt;Athon is underway. Stay tuned for results!

     Creative Challenge

    In today’s rapidly evolving digital world, innovation is driven by those who think ahead—developers who craft the tools, apps, and systems that shape our daily lives. Qt has been at the heart of this transformation for nearly three decades, empowering users to create intuitive, high-performance solutions that reach across industries.

    This competition is more than just a test of coding skills; it’s a platform for the next generation of tech leaders to showcase their talent, creativity, and ability to solve real-world challenges.

      Grand Prize

    The winning individual or team will win tickets, flights, and accommodation worth over €1000 per person to Qt World Summit 2025, May 6th & 7th in Munich, Germany! You will also have the opportunity to showcase your winning project to a network of Qt Developers and companies looking for talent.

     



    Two Rounds, All Online!

     

    Qt;Athon focuses on solving coding tasks in the first round and creating a functional application in the second round. Participants will need to already have some basic knowledge of algorithms for sorting and searching data as well as knowledge of data structures such as lists and trees. Knowledge of Qt will be required in the second round. You can already prepare yourself for this by checking the free Qt Academy courses.

     

    Group_1501

    Round 1

    Wednesday, October 30th starting at 9:00 CET. There will be three small coding tasks that you will have 24 hours to complete. You can sign up as an individual or in a team of 2-3. The ten best individuals/teams will advance to the Round 2.



    October 30th

    Group 6565

    Round 2

    Monday, November 25th beginning at 9:00 CET.  You or your team will complete a full application (incl. design) based on the briefs from our competition partners Scythe Studio and Spyrosoft. You will have one week to complete the project.


    November 25th

    Important Dates

    Sign Up Deadline:
    OCTOBER 25th

    Round 1:
    OCTOBER 30th at 9 AM CET

    Round 2:
    NOVEMBER 25th at 9 AM CET

    Project Demos & Expert Panel:
    DECEMBER 12th

    Main Judges of the Competition

    bvunderl-profile-bw
    Bruno Vunderl
    Qt Group
    Product Lead

    Bruno has been involved in building automotive user interfaces, embedded devices and microcontrollers ever since his student days.  Before joining Qt, he used the Qt framework to create instrument cluster user interfaces for the automotive industry. You might have already driven a car with his software.

    Cristian_1024 (1)
    Cristián Maureira-Fredes
    Qt Group
    Senior R&D     Manager

    Cristián joined Qt Group to boost the Python offering, by contributing to the binding generator (Shiboken) and the official set of Python bindings (PySide) due to his experience with C++, Python and CPython. He is currently in charge of the Qt Core (Berlin) and Qt for Python teams, and contributes actively to many other Open Source projects and initiatives.

    jakub-w (1)
    Jakub Wincenciak
    Scythe Studio
    Head of Operations

    Jakub is a certified Qt QML programmer. He has a computer engineering degree and a master's degree in computer science. He continuously expands his technical knowledge through training, which has contributed to a series of successful project implementations.

    Mihlak
    Michał Sokołowski
    Spyrosoft     
    Senior HMI Software Engineer

    Michał is an HMI expert, Qt contributor and  enthusiast. He is keen on computer graphics and software performance. Michał started developing software 2009 and since he has worked on various projects, from business process tools to self driving car systems.

    Judging Criteria

    Task specific criteria will be shared with the assignment email on each competition round.

    On a generic level the submitted competition tasks will be evaluated based on following criteria:


      Relevance (40 %)
    Does the submitted work respond to the challenge it was submitted to?

      Creativity (20 %)
    How novel or creative is the solution?

      Technical Accuracy (40 %)
    Does the solution operate as intended? Is the code clear and written with the best practices?

    Rules

    • To participate, you need to sign up by 25th of October 2024 using the form on this page. By signing up you accept the competition Rules, Terms and Conditions. You'll receive an approval email from the competition organizer confirming participation. The 100 first accepted sign-ups will be approved to participate in the competition.
    • Participants must be students in a degree program aiming for bachelor's or master's degree.
    • All competition tasks can be done individually or in a team of 2-3 people. Students are responsible for forming the teams. When signing up for the competition, you'll define whether you participate alone or with a team.
    • The group lead will receive the competition tasks via email when the competition starts, and they are responsible for sharing the tasks with the other group members.
    • The competition is held in two rounds. The first round consists of three small coding tasks. The best individuals/teams (max 10) from the first round will be qualified for the second and final round where there's a project challenge.
    • The second-round participants are expected to showcase their work to an expert panel consisting of the competition judges (online).

     

    • Each competition round will have a fixed timing. Only competition work submitted in the given timeframe will be accepted to competition.
    • The submitted work for Qt;athon must be the participants' original work.
    • Fully AI generated solutions are not allowed. You are allowed to use coding helpers based on AI. A suspicion that the majority of the project was written with AI will lead to disqualification.
    • You can use the tools of your choice unless otherwise specified in the task descriptions. Participants are expected to use their own hardware.
    • Any programming language is allowed unless specified otherwise in the tasks. However, in the project part (round 2), the UI must be done with Qt and therefore C++ and Python are recommended.
    • All competition tasks will be submitted to GitHub. The details for submitting will be sent to the participants via email at the competition start time.

    FAQ

    Do I need an educational license to participate?

    No. However, in the project part (Round 2), the UI must be done with Qt, therefore we recommend having Qt's Educational License. Alternatively, you can use Qt Community Edition.

    Can I participate from anywhere in the world?

    Participants must be students at a recognized educational institution (university, college, or similar education institution with the primary purpose of teaching enrolled students) located in a region where Qt is legally allowed to grant educational licenses, and who hold an email address from such educational institution.

    Do I need a team or can I compete as an individual?

    You can compete as an individual or in a team of up to 3 people. Whichever you choose will be set for both rounds of the competition.

    How can I find other teammates?

    We highly encourage you to partner up with classmates. However, if you find yourself looking for a partner we have created a space in our forum here.

    Do we all need to sign-up together?

    It is required to choose a team lead who will be responsible for turning in the project and all other communications. The team lead needs to sign-up and include additional team members' names, addresses, emails and the name of the educational institution in the form.

    How will we receive the tasks or projects?
    The team lead will receive the competition tasks via email when the competition starts for the first round, and they are responsible for sharing the tasks with the other group members. 
     
    The ones advancing to the second round will be informed via email before the start of the second round. Similarly to the first round, the second round task will be sent to the team lead on the time of second round start. 
     
    If you have signed up to the competition without a team, all tasks will be sent directly to you. 

    How and where do we submit our final answers?

    All competition tasks will be submitted to GitHub. The details for submitting will be sent to the  participants via email at the competition start time.

    Our Competition Partners