Starting a project is the hardest part

After conversations with hundreds of college students across the globe, we were able to understand what makes successful solutions. We're here to support you every step along the way.

World-class mentors

When you register, you'll be added to an online community with all of the other contestants. There, you can ask questions and get support from over 80 Google Developer Experts from around the world!

Community support

On over 800 campuses around the world, Developer Student Clubs are holding events to support you as you develop your solutions.

The first step to building any solution is a clear and well defined problem.  

The next step is to identify the best solution based on your user's needs and given your team's resources and capabilities.  

After that, it's time to design your solution's interface, or how a user will interact with the solution. This work is where user-interface and user-experience design comes in.  

After fully understanding the problem and designing how a user will interact with our solution, we design the technology.  

When building any project, the most important step is identifying a true problem -- something that people truly feel. It's difficult, but the hardest part is getting started. Here are three methods to help begin the process:

1. Interview students and professors on your campus to identify their problems.
2. Approach local businesses or NGOs and ask them how you can help.
3. Speak with people in your local community to find a shared problem you could solve.

One popular method we can use to identify our solution is an exercise developed at GV, formerly known as Google Ventures, called The Design Sprint. Usually done as a 5-day exercise, The Design Sprint is a flexible framework for solving problems through designing, prototyping, and testing ideas with users. It allows you and your team to validate ideas before going through all of the energy of building a product.

Here are some resources you can use to do a design sprint:

Interface design has two parts: user experience and user interface -- UX and UI for short. UX covers how people will use the solution while UI covers what the solution looks and feels like. Both are very important because they dictate how your users will interact with your solution.

Most applications have what’s called a “front-end” or “client” -- this includes the mobile devices, laptop or desktop computers, tablets, and smart-watches we know and use. There’s also another side to the equation, which is called the “back-end” or “server,” and most backends have multiple parts, which can mostly be bucketed into “Running Code,” “Data Storage,” and “Other Services.” In this step, you define what tools you'll be using to build your solution.

Here are some resources to help you get started on building: