Inaugural Awards to Honour Outstanding Achievement in App Creation by High School, College and Graduate School Students

The Kay Family Foundation, a grant-making foundation located in Orange County, CA and established in 2005, has joined with Living in Digital Times, a company that produces lifestyle technology conferences and events at International CES® and throughout the year, to create a scholarship fundto honor young entrepreneurial students for outstanding mobile app development. Entries from around the world are being accepted for the first-ever App-reneur Awards now through December 20, 2013. The winning entries will be showcased by the students at 2014 CES during the Mobile Apps Showdown, a live competition won by audience applause that takes place on Thursday, January 9, 2014 at 12:30 p.m. PT in the Las Vegas Convention and World Trade Center (LVCC), North Hall, Room N255.

The App-reneur Awardswill honor the creative efforts of student-built applications running on any of the current mobile app devices including iOS, Android, Windows 8, as well as smartwatches/wristwear, Google Glass and other emerging platforms. Winners will be invited to attend 2014 CES as guests of the Kay Family Foundation and showcase their apps to the industry as part of the Mobile Apps Showdown, a contest that pits the most powerful new apps in the world in a competition of those “most likely to succeed.”

The final two App-reneur Awards winners will each receive a $5,000 scholarship to further support the student’s endeavors in bringing new apps to market.

“The world is calling for a new generation of transformative leaders with a strong command of science and technology, entrepreneurial and creative thinking, communication savvy and ethical core values,” said Elim Kay, president of the Kay Family Foundation. “Our Foundation is interested in championing a demand-driven surge of 21st century global leaders.”

“The Mobile Apps Showdown thrusts tomorrow’s winning apps into the limelight and is one of the most popular standing-room-only events of the four-day International CES,” said Robin Raskin, creator of the Mobile Apps Showdown and founder of Living in Digital Times. “We’re thrilled that the Kay Family Foundation is working with us to help identify students and rising entrepreneurs who are destined to be the next generation of world-class app builders.”

High school, college and graduate school students from all over the world are invited to submit their apps by visiting https://mobileappsshowdown.com and clicking on the Kay Family Foundation App-reneur Awards. The free application requires a brief description of the app, along with a URL and a statement from the student. The judges, including journalists, engineers and developers from the mobile community, will rate the apps based on their creativity, innovative problem solving, user interface and originality. The public will be able to review the submissions online and cast their votes for the most promising app.

Students will be notified of their status by December 25th and will be invited to travel to Las Vegas to present live in person or via Skype during the Showdown. The award nominees will be showcased on the Mobile Apps Showdown website.