Elsevier's Global Researcher, Student and Developer Application Competition Comes to India

AMSTERDAM, May 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

CodeForScience India, Second Competition in Global Series to Develop Applications

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, has launched its second global CodeForScience (CFS) competition, with key support from members of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Institute of Bioinformatics (IOB), Bangalore, India. CodeForScience is a global series of application development competitions for scientists, researchers and developers. The CodeForScience India competition is co-sponsored by global technology companies, NVIDIA, Thermo Scientific and Microsoft Research.

"Creating unique ideas to solve research problems can be a challenge for scientists and researchers," said Dr. Akhilesh Pandey, professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Founder & Director, Institute of Bioinformatics, India. "To date, Elsevier has organized developer events in China, Turkey and the U.S. with great success. CodeForScience India will generate innovative thinking on designing solutions that enhance the productive use of biomedical information and a valuable base of scientific knowledge."

CodeForScience India is a two-stage competition, which involves concept formulation and application development. Participants have the opportunity to compete for prizes at one or both stages, each requiring unique technology, programming, and design skill sets.

"Elsevier strives to increase collaboration with academic institutions and researchers around the world," said Rafael Sidi, Vice President, Application Marketplace and Developer Network, Elsevier. "We are excited to bring CodeForScience to researchers and scientists in India to develop applications that will help the global research community increase productivity during the scientific discovery process."

Submitted entries will be evaluated based on novelty, usability and added value to researchers in specific domains or to the general research workflow. Submissions will be judged by professors and information management experts from National Innovation Council, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB), Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Madurai Kamaraj University, Institute of Microbial Technology, Strand Life Sciences and NVIDIA.

The concept formulation stage opened May 5, 2012 and will run through Friday, May 25, 2012, 23:59 IST; the application development stage will run from Wednesday, June 06, 2012, 12:01 IST through Sunday, July 15, 2012, 23:59 IST. Winning concepts will be announced on June 05, 2012, followed by announcement of the winning applications on July 29, 2012. Winners of CodeForScience India will be invited to showcase their application at the 'CFS Talk & Awards' event on Sunday, July 29, 2012 at IISc.

Concept submissions are currently being accepted online and the competition is open to residents of India. Participation guidelines are available at www.codeforscience.com/india. For more information about CodeForScience, visit: http://codeforscience.com.  
 

About the Elsevier SciVerse Suite

The SciVerse® suite of search and discovery offerings provides the global research community access to a constantly expanding universe of content and solutions which can now be accessed in one platform. The suite currently includes SciVerse ScienceDirect®, the world's largest source of peer-reviewed content containing more than 10 million articles, and SciVerse Scopus®, an abstract and citation database containing 41 million records, 70% with abstracts and nearly 19,500 titles from 5,000 publishers worldwide. The platform also includes SciVerse Hub which enables researchers to perform a single search across all of the SciVerse content as well as targeted web content with results ranked by relevancy and without duplication. Applications and Developer Network allow the scientific community to build, find and use applications that enhance the SciVerse research experience.

About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include SciVerse ScienceDirect, SciVerse Scopus, Reaxys, MD Consult and Mosby's Nursing Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

Primary Media Contact: Manik Sethi, m.sethi@elsevier.com, 91-124-4774204