Best Geospatial Students in the Nation at the 3rd Annual Geospatial Competition

Digital Quest, Inc. and SkillsUSA are pleased to announce the 3rd Annual Geospatial Technology Competition. This contest was created to provide post secondary students an opportunity to showcase their skills on a national level and compete for the SkillsUSA title of best in the U.S. for geospatial technology. The competition is being held in Kansas City, Missouri, June 23-June 27, 2008.

Registrations for the contest are currently being accepted at www.digitalquest.com/SkillsUSA08. The first 50 students that are verified as post secondary students registered in programs that teach GIS will receive invitations to participate in the contest. The qualified student contestants will receive the STARS certification kits, worth $500 including a 60-day evaluation license of ESRI ArcView 9.2 software. They will receive a formal invitation to the contest and a password to a protected ftp site. Students will then download the 2008 STARS Geospatial Project and will need to prepare and complete this project in advance of the competition in Kansas City in June.

In Kansas City, the contestants will orally defend their GIS project, as well as take a written technical knowledge test and a hands-on test of geospatial technology skills. Those college contestants at the Kansas City competition whose aggregate score reaches at least 75 percentile will be awarded STARS Certification. STARS (Spatial Technology and Remote Sensing) is a fully developed “turn-key” certification program for high schools, colleges and universities as well as career professionals looking to integrate geospatial tools into their on-the-job skill set.

The top prize includes a complete software package of ArcGIS ArcView and four extensions student software package worth $10,000 from ESRI, and a $1,000 cash scholarship to reimburse travel expenses to Kansas City. Other prizes include the ArcGIS ArcView student software package, and $500 and $250 scholarships for 2nd & 3rd place winners.

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Digital Quest, Inc. is a Mississippi-based development and training oriented company with a primary focus of enabling educational institutions to provide skill training in the new and ever-more vital field of Geospatial Technology. Digital Quest, an active member of the EIGS geospatial technology cluster, is headquartered in Ridgeland, Mississippi and operates the SPACESTARS Geospatial Training Laboratory at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. For more information about Digital Quest, visit www.digitalquest.com or contact Eddie Hanebuth at 1-877-573-6683.

SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled work force. . The national organization helps all students excel in their training programs and future technical, skilled and service careers. SkillsUSA serves more than 285,000 students and instructors annually. The organization has 13,000 school chapters in 54 state and territorial associations. More than 14,500 instructors and administrators are professional members of SkillsUSA. For more information, visit www.skillsusa.org.