TopCoder Wins VA Badges for Vets Competition

Competitive Software Development Community Honored for Contributions to Help Veterans Document Skills for Jobs and Academic Credit

GLASTONBURY, Conn., March 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — TopCoder®, Inc., the world’s largest competitive Community of digital creators, today announced that it has been honored by the Department of Veterans Affairs for its contribution to a new program that will make it easier for military veterans to document the skills they learned in uniform for civilian employers and higher education. TopCoder has been awarded $25,000 to help implement and support full development of the winning concept and prototype.

The “Badges for Vets” competition is a nationwide challenge to create digital ‘badges’ that will help veterans translate their military skills into civilian jobs or to receive academic credit in higher education. Digital badges are transportable emblems or widgets that provide verified skills information and act as a digital resume or online credentialing that can be displayed across the web and provide authenticated statistics about an individual’s abilities and experience for prospective employers.

“Our goal is to put our proven system of identifying, recognizing and accounting for technical skills to work for our returning veterans,” said Rob Hughes, president and COO of TopCoder, Inc. “The TopCoder community is both proud and excited to be honored for our part in this important challenge.”

VA was joined by the departments of Education, Energy and Labor to sponsor the competition. The Badges for Vets competition is part of the Badges for Lifelong Learning Competition administered by a consortium supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation.

About TopCoder, Inc. TopCoder is the world’s largest competitive community of digital creators with nearly 400,000 members representing algorithmists, software developers and creative artists from over 200 countries. The TopCoder Community creates digital assets including analytics, software and creative designs and solutions for a wide-ranging client base through a competitive, rigorous, standards based methodology. Combined with our extremely talented community this groundbreaking methodology results in superior outcomes for our clients. For more information about sponsoring TopCoder events and utilizing TopCoder’s software services and platforms, visit www.topcoder.com.

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