Andrew Nimick Point Concept twitter.com/andrewnim

This Saturday is the second Bay Of Plenty Mashup competition at the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic Bongard campus on Cameron Road.

We have 13 teams entered this year, which is a really good number from the BOP schools.

Over 20 information technology, business and marketing professionals have offered their time to mentor the students over the weekend.

This year's judges are:

• Maxine Elliott CEO Ultrafast Fibre
• Mike Ross CEO Holistec
• Andrew Nimick CTO Pingar
• Jodie Tipping Director Cucumber Software
• Simon Clarke General Manager ICT Trustpower
• Steven Vincent Director Technology Wise will act as a reserve.

As with last year's event, the teams will have to supply business plans, marketing plans and a product, which they will present in front of the judges a la dragons den.

The presentations are at 2.30 on the Sunday afternoon at the Bongard campus of the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic on Cameron Road.

Karen Phillips will again be playing a wonderful hostess.

The prize giving that follows will round off the weekend with the awarding of five $500 prizes and the cup for the Ultrafast Fibre Best Mashup 2012.

Mashup 2012 prizes:

• The Avonmore Best Technical Mashup $500
• The Bay of Plenty Polytechnic Best Designed Mashup $500
• The Technology Wise Best Managed Mashup $500
• The Trustpower Best Marketed Mashup $500
• The BOP Regional Council prize for best use of open data $500
• The Ultrafast Fibre Best Mashup 2012 Trophy, certificate, business placement, media and publicity and presentation at school assembly.

These prizes will have been well earned if the quality is like last year - I actually think it is going to be a lot harder on we judges this time.

It is great just how many people from our local business community are volunteering to help this year, there help can be invaluable in giving our fledgling start-ups a great boost.

If you are a parent or care giver, or just want to find out what is going on you can check the site, Mashup Facebook page, Twitter for the #bopmashup, and also subscribe to our text updates by texting mashup to 4363.

This service is being kindly supplied by local start-up Vortext.