Building Good with C++Builder Contest

Contest

Introducing the Building Good with C++Builder Contest! A contest to show your achievements with C++Builder that benefit people, communities, and the world.

We know many people use C++Builder to create software that does good: helps a nonprofit, assists scientific research, provides a tool to help with a daily task, and more. We’re running a contest to see the best software you’re creating and to showcase these tools!

The contest is open for two months (from 05/28/2021 – 07/30/2021). Anyone interested may enter. Both users new to C++ and C++Builder as well as anyone with more experience are encouraged to participate.

New users of C++Builder can learn more about how to set up C++Builder for their first project by reading this guide.

Your software can be existing or something you build brand new.

Challenges of Interest

What does “good” here refer to? Well, it’s very broad, and it’s anything that helps people in their daily lives or benefits the world.
Here are some possible areas your software might help in, but feel free to select challenges outside the ones listed below:

• Mitigating climate change – helps the world
• Volunteering (nonprofit organization) – helps your community
• Sourcing ethical food – helps the world
• Finding local city services – helps people in their daily lives
• Searching for source code/answers – helps developers in their daily lives
• Budgeting – helps people in their daily lives
• Making working from home easier – helps people handle the current crisis

Again, feel free to select challenges beyond these; the key is only that the software helps someone or benefits the lives of people, society, or any group in some way.

If you want to build something new, we have put together a list of open data sources that you might find useful. The table can be found at the bottom of this page. 

Requirements for the Contest

• The project should solve a real, pressing challenge. It should help a group of people, a community, or a nonprofit or provide a benefit to the world or general society.
  • You will be given the opportunity to explain the problem your software helps solve.
  • Software is just one component of solutions, so finding an organization to work with or making your software a part of a larger initiative is a great idea.
• The project, or at least part of the project, should be built with C++Builder Trial, C++Builder Community Edition, or any paid edition of C++Builder 10.3 or newer. Your solution may include other programming languages, versions, tools, and so on, but part of it must compile with C++Builder 10.3 or newer.
• Participants can work individually, in teams, as part of a company, or in other organizational structures.
  • Limit of 1 entry per project (projects that are substantially copies of previously submitted projects will be rejected).
  • For teams, one person must be selected as a representative for the project and will be the person to potentially receive the prize.
  • An individual can be on more than one team, but the representative of each team must be different.
  • It is up to the teams as to how the prizes are divided between members.
• The source code for the project should be available on GitHub with public visibility. This is a required step to complete the submission process.
  • The project should have the GitHub Topics: CppBuilder and CodeForGood.
  • Include a link to embarcadero.com/products/cbuilder
  • The number of stars on the project will be used in determining the 4th to the 20th winners, while the top 3 will be determined by a panel of Embarcadero experts.
• Include at least 5 screenshots
  • Screenshots should be around 1920×1080 resolution
  • Include a screenshot of your code view in the IDE and the design view in the IDE, etc.
  • Show your program running, your program’s output, etc.
  • If the application doesn’t have any user interface, screenshots of the output or design documents are also acceptable.
  • Also provide any product logos, etc., you would like to include.
• Optionally share your project on Twitter with the hashtags #CodeForGood and #CppBuilder
  • The number of public retweets and likes will also be used in determining the winners from the 4th to the 20th positions.
• Optionally provide a link to a YouTube or Vimeo video of your project in action.
  • You can show the project in action, show some code, etc.
  • Include the hashtags #CodeForGood and #CppBuilder in your description along with a link to embarcadero.com/products/cbuilder 
  • Including voiceover, music, etc., is optional (but may increase engagement).
  • The number of public YouTube likes will also be used in determining the top 4th to 20th winners.
• All images and videos must be on a modern operating system (released in the last 5 years).
  • Screenshot tip: Take your screenshots in High DPI mode or with text zoom activated so they are high resolution. Make sure the text is readable. 
  • Embed some screenshots and videos in your GitHub repository.
• The “Proudly Powered by C++Builder” logo and a link to the C++Builder product page should be added to your submission on GitHub. 
• Submit your software using the link that will be sent to your email address when you register for the contest. You can register for the contest here.

Prizes

A range of prizes will be awarded to winners of the contest. Prizes will be sent using Paypal, Tremendous, or Payoneer.

• First-place prize valued at US$2,000.
• Second-place prize valued at US$1,000.
• Third-place prize valued at US$500.
• 4th place through 20th place valued at US$100 each.

The prizes are in USD or approximate equivalent value in local currencies. The winner will choose which platform (Paypal, Tremendous, or Payoneer) to receive their prize through and is responsible to make sure they are eligible to receive payment based on their local laws and regulations.

The top 3 winners will be selected by Embarcadero while the remaining 17 will be selected based on the combined total of Twitter retweets, Twitter likes, YouTube views, YouTube thumbs-up, and GitHub stars. 

How to Win

Starting 05/28/2021, you can join the contest and submit your entries.

You might want to post a link to your entry on Twitter and other social media platforms to have a better chance of winning. In your submission, please include the links to your social media posts.

• Register for the contest using the following link.
• Pick a relevant project idea, problem to solve, or open data source, or if you already have a solution that makes the world a better place, use that!
• The project, or at least part of the project, should be built with C++Builder Trial, C++Builder Community Edition, or any paid edition of C++Builder 10.3 or newer. Your solution may include other programming languages, versions, tools, etc., but part of it must compile with C++Builder 10.3 or newer.
• You are required to upload your solution on GitHub, do not forget to add the Proudly Powered by C++Builder logo and classify your repositories with the following topics: #CodeForGood and #CppBuilder
• Submit your solution along with images and videos using the form you will receive (in your mailbox) when you register for the contest. You might want to post a link on Twitter tagging @EmbarcaderoTech with #CodeForGood and #CppBuilder. We will retweet your entry on Twitter.
• You can encourage your friends and followers to like and retweet it too.
• Like and retweet the entries that inspire you on Twitter, and star your favorite entries on GitHub. Follow @EmbarcaderoTech to see Twitter entries, and follow the topics: #CodeForGood and #CppBuilder to see all the solutions on GitHub.
• Entry closes July 30, 2021, and soon after Embarcadero will announce the winners!

Register Now!

Logos

Happy Coding!

Register Now!

Open Data Sources

• • Timezone DB – TimeZoneDB provides a free time zone database for cities of the world.
  • Google Scholar – Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature and academic studies. You can search across multiple disciplines from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities, and other websites. Sources include articles, theses, books, abstracts, and even court opinions.
  • U.S. Census Bureau – The Census Bureau’s mission is to serve as the leading source of quality data about the people and economy of the US, including population data, geographic data, and education. Their goal is to give analysts, academic researchers and policymakers access to the data tools and research they need to make decisions.
  • European Union Open Data Portal – The European Union Open Data Portal is the single point of access to a growing range of data from the institutions and other bodies of the European Union (EU). Browse data sets by subject or group, including economics, science, trade, education, and employment.
  • Data.gov – Data.gov is home to the US government’s open data. The US government pledged to make all government data available for free online. Here you will find data, tools, and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, and design data visualizations.
  • Google Public Data Explorer – Launched in March 2010, the Google Public Data Explorer makes large, public-interest data sets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. This tool was built for students, journalists, policymakers, and data lovers. You don’t have to be an expert to navigate this site. Create data visualizations of public data, link to them, and embed them on your website.
  • Social Mention – Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user-generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information. It allows you to track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across all social platforms.
  • Pew Research Center’s Internet Project – The Pew Research Center’s Internet Project offers scholars and the general public access to raw data sets from their research. You can track key national, political, economic, and demographic trends in the US. Their data sets are available as single compressed archive files (.zip file), which makes the data easy to visualize.
  • UNICEF Statistics – In collaboration with a wide range of partners, UNICEF gathers evidence on the situation of women and children globally. It uses this knowledge to inform national and global decision-making with the objective of improving children’s well-being. The data sets include accurate, nationally representative data from household surveys and other sources.
  • World Health Organization – The Global Health Observatory provides data and analyses on global health priorities, including world hunger and disease. Each page of the site provides information on a global situation and highlights growing trends. They have detailed health statistics for each country, as compiled by WHO and partners.
  • The Broad Institute — Cancer Program Data – The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT is committed to meeting the most critical challenges in biology and medicine. Broad scientists pursue a wide variety of projects that cut across scientific disciplines and institutions, and you can access their cancer-related data sets here.
  • Registry of Open Data on AWS (RODA) – Browse Amazon Web Services Public Data Sets by category for a huge wealth of information. You can search through NASA’s satellite images of Earth and climate projections, data from a million contemporary popular music tracks with the Million Songs Collection, and the 1000 Genome Project.
  • National Centers for Environmental Information – You can navigate a large collection of environmental, meteorological, and climate data sets from the world’s biggest archive of weather data, the US National Climatic Data Center. Quick access to many of NCEI’s climate and weather datasets, products, and various resources. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/quick-links#loc-clim
  • UK Open Data – Find data published by the central government, local authorities, and public bodies to help you build products and services
  • UK Data Service – A search engine for recent datasets on social media trends, politics, finance, international relations, and more happening in the UK.
  • European Union Open Data Portal – With almost 14,000 datasets available, EUROPA is one of the top open data providers in the EU for insights on energy, education, commerce, agriculture, international issues, and much more.
  • Open Data Network – This source allows users to look for data using a robust search engine. Apply advanced filters to your searches, and pull data on everything from public safety, finance, infrastructure, housing and development, and more.
  • UNICEF – These valuable open datasets monitor and report on the situations of children and women everywhere. Latest updates on disease outbreaks, gender and education, attitudes on social norms, and other datasets are widely available through UNICEF, as well as data visualizations.
  • WHO (World Health Organization) – WHO’s Open Data repository is how WHO keeps track of health-specific statistics of its 194 Member States.
  • World Bank Open Data – As a repository of the world’s most comprehensive data regarding what’s happening in different countries across the world, World Bank Open Data is a vital source of Open Data. It also provides access to other datasets as well which are mentioned in the data catalog.
  • FiveThirtyEight – It provides its various sources of data for a variety of sectors such as politics, sports, science, economics, etc. You can download the data as well. It is a great site for data-driven journalism and story-telling.
  • DBpedia – DBpedia aims at getting structured content from the valuable information that Wikipedia created. With DBpedia, you can semantically search and explore the relationships and properties of Wikipedia resources. This includes links to other related datasets as well.
  • U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission – Every quarter dating back to 2009, the SEC has published open datasets on corporate financial statements and disclosure information.
  • NASA Earth Data – Access NASA’s complete open data source for Earth science. Monitor the atmosphere, the cryosphere, land, ocean, calibrated radiance, and solar radiance.
  • Climate Data Online – For historical and near-real-time climate datasets around the globe, the CDO acts as a great open data source. Search daily summaries, marine data, weather radars, and more.
  • IEA Atlas of Energy – When it comes to global energy and electricity consumption rates, IEA has comprised open datasets and map visualizations for everyone to access.