ARPA Institute
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ARPA Institute Invention Competition: Press Release.
The ARPA Institute completed its first, very successful, annual
`Invention Competition’ in Armenia, in an award ceremony on October 1,
09, and handed out a $2,000 first prize, a $1,000 second prize, a $600
third prize and two fourth place prizes of $400 each. There were 16
participants with their advisors. Certificates of participation were
given to every student participant and the awards were given to the
winning students, in the presence of over 60 university students,
professors, Government officials and representatives of the
administrations from the State Engineering University of Armenia
(formerly the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute) and the Yerevan State
University. This contest amongst university students in Armenia is
designed to encourage those active in science, engineering,
mathematics, technology and creative invention, while enhancing their
problem-solving abilities. This prestigious challenge also provides an
opportunity to recognize the working relationship between students and
their advisor, who are involved in the projects by guiding the
potentially patentable inventions, and to stimulate excitement and
interest in technology and economic leadership in Armenia. The
Ministry of Education & Science of Armenia and the institutions of
higher learning all have shown great interest in this competition and
endorse it wholeheartedly.
The inventions are required to be a reduced-to-practice idea or
workable model and must be the work of a student or team of maximum
four students, or a team with their university advisor, who acts as a
guide to the project. The invention could be a machine that is
operable, a new chemical (complete with evidence of successful
application), a new plant or a new or original ornamental design for
an article of manufacture. It should be reproducible and should have
potential in becoming a viable product. The entry must be the original
idea and work/product of the student or student/advisor team, and may
not have been (1) made available to the public as a commercial product
or process or (2) been patented or published more than 1 year prior to
the date of submission to the competition. The entries may be
submitted in Armenian or English with detailed descriptions, drawings,
plots and data showing the results of experimentation of a prototype
to prove its viability, as well as data to show the new contribution
the invention claims to be making in the field.
All participating students must be enrolled, or have been enrolled,
full time in any university in Armenia, at least part of the twelve
month period prior to the date the entry is submitted. In the case of
a team, all students in the team must satisfy the full time student
requirement. Judges, selected from universities in Armenia and from
the ARPA Institute, study the projects to understand the presented
work and evaluate its merits, compare them with other similar
inventions and determine the winning entries.
Each entry includes a summary paragraph, with the title of the
invention, a specific description of what it is and how or what it
adds to the current technology of the field. A detailed description of
the project follows, explaining how it works, what it does, and how it
can become a commercially viable product, with discussions on its
technical merits. Experimental data from tests on a prototype is
provided that show the invention does what has been claimed in the
proposal. Comparison with similar devices is also presented that show
the advantages of the invention over the existing ones. Photos,
slides, disks, videotapes and even samples, are sometimes included in
the entry to help the judges understand the invention and how it
works. A literature and/or patent search is also an essential
component for determining originality of the idea presented.
To participate, each student (or student/advisor team) must fill out
and sign an application, which can be downloaded from the ARPA
Institute website at The entire should
be uploaded to the ARPA Institute website, or e-mailed to
[email protected], written in Microsoft Word and converted to
PDF format. The number of pages of each entry should not exceed 15
pages. The deadline for submission for the 2009 competition is
February 15, 09.
For more information please send an e-mail to the above mentioned
e-mail address.
ARPA Institute Board of Directors, Los Angeles, CA, USA.