Any student of the Galician University System who has defended their Final Degree Project or Final Master's Project in any of the calls of the academic year 2020-2021 can apply

The Consorcio para el desarrollo de aplicaciones para la Gestión Universitaria (CIXUG), in collaboration with the Agencia para la Modernización Tecnológica de Galicia (Amtega), announces the XIV edition of the Prize for the Best University Project with Free License intending to promote and bring Galician university students closer to open source software and the employment opportunities that publishing or collaborating with open source projects can open up for them.

All the information on participating is available on the prize page within the portal mancomún (https://www.mancomun.gal/premiopfc/). In addition, for any questions, you can contact the prize organisation at the Open Source Office of the CIXUG or the Open Source Coordination Office of the Amtega.

Requirements and deadlines

Students interested in participating in this award should be aware that the requirements that these works must meet are: to have been carried out with a free implementation of any programming language and to have published the software developed during the project with a free licence among those recognised as such by the Free Software Foundation or the Open Source Initiative. Projects that make use of Free Hardware can also participate.

To participate in this award, interested persons must follow all the steps required in the rules of the award before 8 October:

1. Register the project in the mancomún forxa in the topic "Concursos > Premio ao mellor PFC con Software Libre > 2021"
2. Submit a report (maximum ten pages) explaining the specific aspects of Open Source Software and public activity of the project. The report must be published in the Documents section of the project in the Forxa.
3. Register on the prize mailing list where any doubts that participants may have will be answered, and the coordination of the prize award ceremony.
4. Fill in the registration form.

Finalists and the resolution ceremony

Once the deadline for submitting applications has expired, the jury will select the finalists who will have to attend the award ceremony, which will be held on 22 October. The finalists will have to make a brief presentation of the work carried out in their project, emphasising the aspects of their project related to Open Source Software, their achievements, their future perspectives...

This award aims to reward not only a technically good project but also an excellent open-source project. The judging criteria that the jury will take into account when making its decision are as follows:

• Level of public activity of the work. Continuous publication of the work will be valued, whether using the mailing lists of an existing project, those of the mancomun.gal forxa or any other web medium, such as personal blogs; collaboration with other free software projects, community building, etc.
• Proper use of a free licence: the correct choice of a free licence and subsequent application to the project code will be assessed...
• Project quality: design and implementation.

The Prize for the best University Project with Free License will have an initial financial endowment of €1,500, thanks to the contribution of the Consorcio para o desenvolvemento de aplicacioness para a Xestión Universitaria (CIXUG) within the framework of the collaboration agreement signed with Amtega for the promotion and dissemination of free software.

In addition, it is foreseen that this financial endowment can be extended up to a maximum of 750€ more in collaboration with other agents of the free software ecosystem in the university environment.

This initiative is part of the Free Software Action Plan 2021 of the Xunta de Galicia, within the lines of action to improve and enhance the mechanisms for training and dissemination of open-source software among Galician citizens and, in particular, among university students.