Dig into the data in the D&B Developer Sandbox. Over $30,000 in prizes total are up for grabs. Mashups or standalone, we want to hear your ideas and/or see your apps using D&B data

Grand Prize Winners

$100 Prize Winners

mudnug vvtrish VijayaMalla CJRii elhok13 AliaksandrPedzko nwhitfield Erasmus Lutse apmyhr roscler Darrin.ca Tony Thornton Eugene Chuvyrov and Fabien Lavocat

D&B "Show Me The Data" Spot Challenge Winners

Ranjan.D (July 8)

nwhitfield (July 9 and July 30)

roscler (July 10, July 11 and July 12)

Tim Corey (July 15, July 17 and July 19)

way2bord (July 16, July 18 and July 22)

Tony Thornton (July 23 and July 25)

relhok 13 (July 24)

vvtrish (July 26, July 29 and July 31)

Judges

Chris Maunder

Chris is the Co-founder, Administrator, Architect, Chief Editor and Shameless Hack who wrote and runs The Code Project. He's been programming since 1988 while pretending to be, in various guises, an astrophysicist, mathematician, physicist, hydrologist, geomorphologist, defence intelligence researcher and then, when all that got a bit rough on the nerves, a web developer. He is a Microsoft Visual C++ MVP both globally and for Canada locally.

Chris Pardo

Chris Pardo is a Senior Product Director for Platform and API at Dun and Bradstreet (D&B), where he is focused on enterprise application/data integration, strategic partnerships and alliances with other platforms, and developer community engagement. Prior to D&B, Chris worked at IBM as a software engineer. He lives in Austin, Texas and double majored in Computer Science and Business at the University of Texas in Austin.

Lynn Langit

Lynn Langit - Big Data Architect of Lynn Langit Consulting. Microsoft SQL Server MVP, Google Developer Expert (Cloud), 10Gen MongoDB Master, Cloudera Certified Developer and author of 3 books on Business Intelligence. Lynn blogs at www.LynnLangit.com and she is also the co-founder of 'Teaching Kids Programming.

Kevin Priddle

Kevin is one of the newest additions to the CodeProject team and his main duties as Editor and Special Projects Manager include managing the day-to-day operations of competitions and contests on CodeProject as well as developing content and editorial for various projects. He previously served as a Staff Writer with "IT in Canada" and as Associate Editor for its sister company, "The Canadian Channel Standard", providing coverage of information technology news, new product launches, business programs, industry events and conferences, and performing interviews with experts and executives from some of today's largest IT companies."

How do I enter?

Sign up to the D&B Developer Sandbox on Windows Azure (using your existing Microsoft account)

Post an article in the Azure section under D&B Developer Contest that outlines your ideas



Write an application that uses D&B data from the Windows Azure Marketplace.

Take part in one of our D&B "Show Me The Data" Daily Spot Challenges. Search the D&B Developer Sandbox on the Windows Azure Marketplace to find the answers to our daily questions for a chance at one of eighteen $50 cash prizes .

. Please note : Due to legal restrictions this contest is available to those in North America only. For the purposes of this contest D&B defines North America as: Canada, U.S.A., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Challenge starts June 17th, 2013 and ends July 31, 2013.

Weekly D&B data live tech support sessions Join a live conversation every Thursday at 2pm ET/ 11 am PT to ask any questions you may have about the Challenge or D&B data. D&B technical and data people are on hand to help! Here’s the detail: Meeting link. Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) - a headset is recommended. Or, call in using your telephone: +1(312) 878-3081. Access Code: 127-739-869. Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting. Meeting ID: 127-739-869

What is the Challenge?

First, just have a look around and see what’s there. You can reference the Developer Sandbox Reference Guide for a listing of data available to you.

Second, let your imagination run wild. Think of the kind of app you might build with this data. Submit an application idea, identifying the kinds of data you would use in the app.

Third, start building using the sandbox data.

Last, submit your application idea for a potential $100 prize or your finished application for a larger prize ($15K, $10K or $5K)

Your application can be whatever you want but it must make use of the sandbox data. For some examples of web applications see the D&B AppCenter, but you entry does not need to be a web app - anything is eligible.

What is the reward?

Big prizes for the most innovative applications: $15,000 First Prize, $10,000 Second Prize, and $5,000 Third Prize .

. Ten $100 prizes to developers who come up with creative application ideas using standalone D&B data or D&B data mashed up with other data

One $100 prize for everyone (except Grand Prize Winners) that participated in the contest

Eighteen $50 cash prizes available in the D&B "Show Me The Data" Daily Spot Challenges running 8 July, 2013 to 31 July, 2013.

I’m a developer outside North America. Can I participate?

Unfortunately, due to some legal restrictions, this contest is not available to developers outside North America. Believe us, we’d love to have you join in, but we’re not allowed to. We’d like to have an international challenge in the future. For the purposes of this contest D&B defines North America as: Canada, U.S.A., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

What is the Developer Sandbox?

The Developer Sandbox is a mashup of business data that developers can use during the D&B Developer Challenge to plan and design their applications. The Sandbox is made up of 10,000 business records that give you a sampling of the kind of data available from D&B.

D&B usually makes its data available in logical groupings for specific verticals, but in this case D&B want you to see the wide variety of data that is available to you so that you can use your imagination and create some new types of applications with the data.

What kind of applications can I create using D&B data?

Your imagination is the limit. See some examples of applications you can build on the D&B Direct site.

Are there any recommended application types I should focus on?

One example we heard of was for companies in geographical areas of high risk for natural disasters so that their customers can avoid supply chain interruptions – and find other companies that could temporarily fill the gap if disruptions occur.

While D&B provide business focused data, the opportunities for apps, as you can see, are virtually limitless.

What kind of data does D&B provide?

What happens if I run into problems while using the Developer Sandbox?

D&B provides data about companies, from their phone numbers and addresses to whether they are Green Certified or have been barred from working with the US government, or whether they’re minority- or veteran-owned. Their Global Database contains more than 215 million records about companies, and draws from 30,000 sources to update that data 1.5 million times per day

Never fear, D&B is going to provide senior level support through live ‘office hours’. We’ll let you know shortly when that will happen

Are there some references to help me get started?

Articles:

Can anyone enter?

As with any competition of this nature there are some restrictions. Employees at D&B, and CodeProject cannot enter, and laws in certain jurisdictions also restrict entrants. Please see the Terms and Conditions for a full list.

Yes, an article is an important component of the challenge since it is the place where you describe what you are doing and how you solved problems that you ran into. This contest is designed to teach contestants and the audience, so the better your article, the more code you show and the more you explain how you completed each challenge, the better.

Who uses D&B data?

Sales and Marketing professionals love the professional contact info and corporate family relationship information since it helps them with their lead generation, negotiation efforts, cross-sell and customer retention activities.

Suppliers love the information about whether their customers will be able to pay them based on past payment history.

Procurement departments love the information about their suppliers and/or potential suppliers, as the data helps them mitigate risk, avoid possible supply chain disruptions and keeps companies on top of compliance initiatives.

Market researchers love the easy access to corporate financial data that can be modeled and compared on millions of companies.