Twitter solves problems with crowdsourcing #PoweredByTweets challenge

Twitter is launching a nationwide design competition called #PoweredByTweets: The Challenge, open to anyone across the UK.

Twitter wants members of the British public to come up with an idea that either solves a problem using Twitter or “creates something beautiful using Twitter data”.

The Challenge will run for two months, after which a judging panel of industry leaders across arts, technology and media will pick first, second and third place winners in each category.

Representations of winning ideas will be built by the Pixie Labs team (@pixielabs), and featured during the London Design Festival (@l_d_f) in September. Plus, the winners will receive Twitter’s ad inventory to promote their idea on the platform.

So if anyone has ever wanted to create a robot that will dance to Tweeted song requests, or light up Buckingham Palace with Tweets, this competition is the perfect fit.

Twitter gave some examples of PoweredByTweets case studies:

• CuteCircuit designed the world’s first haute couture Tweet dress which was worn by Nicole Scherzinger. She showed off her futuristic and digital side by wearing the first Twitter dress for the launch of EE, the new 4G mobile network in November 2012.

• To celebrate when the FOX television show Almost Human began syndication in the UK, UKTV set up a tweet-powered hologram place in a storefront in central London, where passersby could tweet actions in real time. In this video, you can see the android dance the macarena and even take his shirt off. Of course, there were some Londoners with dirty minds in the crowd, making risqué requests like ‘take your pants off’ – to that, the almost human android would reply with a shake of his finger.

• Auto Trader suspended a new Seat Mii by crane 25 metres above London’s Southbank. The UK public were invited to tweet why they deserved to win the car using #AutoTrader. The crane was then programmed to automatically lower the car up or down based on how persuasive each tweet was. The individual that eventually caused the car to reach the ground banked the motor courtesy of Auto Trader. Over 12,600 Tweets were sent in just two hours.

• Western Australia is now considered the world’s deadliest place for shark attacks and in a bid to solve this problem, scientists from the area have fitted 320 sharks with special transmitters that track the animals’ movements. If a tagged shark swims within a kilometre of any beach along the west coast, a receiver will trigger an alert, which then generates an automatic warning tweet. The transmitters were fitted by the Surf Life Saving Western Australia’s (SLSWA) group and the tweet is sent from the company’s Twitter feed – @SLSWA

• Botanicalls Kits lets plants reach out for human help via Twitter! The offer a connection to plants via online Twitter status updates that then get sent to your mobile phone. When your plant needs water, it will post to let you know, and send its thanks when you show it love. Find out more details here www.botanicalls.com/kits/

• The Football League gave football fans on Twitter around the world the chance to decide the colour of the famous Wembley arch as part of a unique first in the build up to this year’s Capital One Cup Final between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. More than 500,000 votes were cast in the Twitter battle to #OwnTheArch at Wembley Stadium. In a tight race, Tottenham prevailed 51% to 49% with the lighting up of the arch broadcast on Sky Sports News and shared via a vine video.

To enter go to creative.twitter.com/uk. Entries close on Friday 5th June.

To get tips and follow all details about the competition @TwitterAdsUK.