We have officially opened registration for the 13th annual Emoti-Con NYC Digital Media & Technology Challenge (and our 2nd-ever Virtual Project Fair). Submit your middle and high school projects by May 19 to be included in this city-wide competition.

This year's Keynote will be the amazing Ari Melenciano. Ari is a Creative Technologist at Google's Creative Lab and the founder of Afrotectopia, a social institution "imagining, researching, and building at the nexus of new media art, design, science, and technology through a Black and Afrocentric lens."

Ari's Keynote talk will be shared at the start of the Project Fair on 5/24.

Why Participate?

Last year, in spite of the pandemic suddenly closing schools and ending many after school programs, over 300 teens presented 87 innovative projects – more than any year previously. Let's show off what we've been able to accomplish in our first full year of living and learning virtually!

• Emoti-Con is a chance for us to celebrate and showcase the innovations & ideas of teens across NYC.
• Judges from CS, STEM and design professions will review and share feedback on each project. Judges will share advice on how your project connects to college and career pathways.
• Each project will be published and have its own webpage. Students can share their project page with parents, friends and mentors who can leave 👏 Emojis 👏 of encouragement and kudos on their work.

Need Help? We’ve got you!

1. Emoti-Con 2021 Competition Guide & Design Challenge: Introduce the Emoti-Con project fair to your students with this presentation. It includes all of the details and resources you will need to create and submit an excellent digital media & technology project.
2. Emoti-Con Project Application Worksheet: This worksheet has every question from the application so you and your students can prepare your responses before filling out the live form. Here's an example Project Page too!
   
3. Project Fair Slides Template: How can your students best show off their project idea to the judges? Feel free to copy and remix this Google Slides presentation template and upload it with your application.
4. Mouse Open Projects: Not sure how your students will turn their idea into a prototype? Mouse has released several free, DIY design & digital making how-tos activities for making apps, 3D models, easy game prototypes, and more.
5. Get Live Support: Emoti-Con has a few volunteer educators who can work with you and your students to get a project ready for the Project Fair. Email us (Emoticon@mouse.org) and we will schedule a time to meet online.

Project Fair Schedule

• 5/19: Submit projects online on the Virtual Emoti-Con site
• 5/24: Virtual Project Fair Begins!
• (New!) 5/26: Emoti-Con Meet and Make: A live Zoom-event for students to do a creative coding challenge in teams with pro web developers and Emoti-Con judges. More details to come!
• 6/4: Last day of Project Fair
• 6/11: Winners announced at an Award Ceremony published via social media

Over 45 tech & media professionals and college representatives have signed up to judge student projects! This year's judges come from:

The Emoti-Con Steering Committee, Supporters & Sponsors

Emoti-Con is the largest event of its kind amongst informal learning programs in New York City. Emoti-Con addresses the need for cross-institutional collaboration and provides the much needed venue for youth to get to connect through their common identity as youth media producers and technologists.

Steering Committee

The event has been developed through a unique collaboration between youth designers, an alumni committee and NYC youth-serving organizations from the Hive NYC Learning Network who form the Emoti-Con Steering Committee: Code Nation, Global Kids, Mouse, the New York Public Library, and Parsons School of Design.

2021 Collaborators & Sponsors

This year's event would not be possible without our partners at Minds On Design Lab, who provided their tech and design expertise to implement our virtual project fair site.

In addition, we'd like to thank our sponsors at Best Buy and the NYC DOE's Department of Instructional and Information Technology (DIIT) whose support demonstrates a commitment to growing design-thinking and innovation skills among youth and educators citywide.