Million Dollar Challenge Off to an Incredible Start

Just last week, we launched our Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge, inviting problem solvers, technologists, and others to help us explore the limits of what graph technology can do. This launch is the culmination of months of hard work by so many people on the TigerGraph team and in our extended community that it’s impossible to account for them all.

Democratizing Graph Databases

A $1 million prize pool is a lot to put on the line, as we’ve done with this challenge. I’ve already been asked several times why we’re doing this now, a question I know others at TigerGraph have also heard.

The answer is very simple. Graph technology is going to play an increasingly important role in the world, far surpassing the already significant impact it has today. We want the next generation of thought leaders, developers, and graph experts to push the boundaries and create impactful, meaningful solutions that will help change the world. It’s all about democratizing and making graph available to people who may not have considered working with the technology or thought the bar to entry was too high.

That’s why it was important, vital even, that we give our challengers the opportunity to choose a project they are passionate about solving. While we’ve provided a curated list of problems to choose from, challengers are welcome to define, research, and build solutions they feel strongly about. As important, they will own the intellectual property for their solution after they’ve completed it!

Only the Beginning

The Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge is a great opportunity to get started working with graph databases and analytics, expand your knowledge, and tap into your innovative spirit to build something meaningful. The $1 million USD prize pool is split into 15 different categories, including Most Impactful, Most Ambitious, Most Innovative, Most Applicable, Women who Graph, and others.

In a way, we didn’t know what to expect when we launched the challenge. While we all felt the incentive of a significant prize for the winners would be a draw, we hoped more that the chance to work with our graph platform on true “passion projects” would be the biggest draw to the contest.

The early results far exceeded our expectations.

Within the first few hours of launch, over a hundred teams and individuals registered for the Million Dollar Challenge, which runs through April 20, 2022. That’s over a hundred possible graph-powered projects that have a very real chance to make a noticeable difference in the world, just in the first day of registration.

If you aren’t one of the first registrants, there’s plenty of time to join the contest and build out your solution. All registrations and final submissions are due April 20; from there, they’ll go to our panel of judges drawn from TigerGraph, our customers and partners, and other experts in the graph analytics industry.

Even if you have little to no experience working with graph databases, there’s still a spot for you in the Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge. As a participant, you’ll have access to a developer portal containing tutorials, documentation, guides, and a wealth of incredibly valuable materials to help you build your solution. You’ll even have access to open office hours with our experts to work through any issues you may be having on your journey.

I hope to see many more participants taking part in the Graph for All Million Dollar Challenge. For more information and to register, visit www.tigergraph.com/graph-for-all.