SAN MATEO, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 02/05/13 -- DataStax, the company that powers the big data apps that transform business, today issued a call for participation in the "Next Great Data Developer Contest." DataStax will offer two undergraduate or graduate-level computer science students, including at least one female student, a scholarship of $10,000 each for developing an application on Apache™ Cassandra. DataStax will award the scholarships at OSCON 2013, which takes place July 22-26 in Portland, Oregon. Apply now at http://www.datastax.com/the-next-great-data-developer.

What: Each contestant must build an application on Apache Cassandra and document their experience using tools such as:

• An active blog
• Video recordings
• A business case presentation
• A working prototype of the program posted to Github

A judges' panel will evaluate the students based on their working prototype and ability to document the development process. The panel will review each application and monitor the participants' progress on an ongoing basis. Judges will review how well participants communicate their development process to the community via blog, Twitter, video, demos and other tools.

Who: Participation is limited to students currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate computer science program at a North American college or university. DataStax is committed to championing women in technology, and will reserve one scholarship for a female developer. Big data developers Kelly Sommers, who is also a DataStax MVP, and Gwen Shapira will judge the apps. Christian Hasker, DataStax senior director of product marketing, will judge community engagement.

When: By May 15, 2013, the judges will create a shortlist of 8-10 applicants and invite them to the Bay Area Cassandra Summit taking place June 11-12 where they will present their projects. Summit attendees can watch the presentations and participate in a question and answer session. DataStax will announce the winners at OSCON 2013, which takes place July 22-26 in Portland; Apache Cassandra Project Chair, Jonathan Ellis, will present the awards at the show.

Apply: To apply for "The Next Great Data Developer Contest," please visit http://www.datastax.com/the-next-great-data-developer.

About DataStax
DataStax powers the big data apps that transform business for more than 200 customers, including startups and 20 of the Fortune 100. DataStax delivers a massively scalable, flexible and continuously available big data platform built on Apache Cassandra™. DataStax integrates enterprise-ready Cassandra, Apache Hadoop™ for analytics and Apache Solr™ for search across multi-datacenters and in the cloud.

Companies such as Adobe, Healthcare Anytime, eBay and Netflix rely on DataStax to transform their businesses. Based in San Mateo, Calif., DataStax is backed by industry-leading investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners, Crosslink Capital and Meritech Capital Partners. For more information, visit DataStax or follow us @DataStax.