A recent Linux Journal article point to Apple’s selling of heavily discounted Macs to schools and asks what Linux is doing to attract the young, and more tech-savvy, generation. It is very important that Linux does target this group, because they are the generation of the future and the generation others are increasingly turning to for solutions to their technology problems. So what can we do to target this group?

I propose a competition, sponsored by individual donations and contributions from as many Linux distributions as possible. This competition could also be done in connection with college software development classes.

In order to compete in the competition, developers would have to create an open-source application for Linux that targets any segment of education – particularly high school and college students. This would spur true innovation and, hopefully, turn out some incredible Linux applications for students.

For example, what about an application that provides a collaborative platform for note-talking and group projects? Additionally, with a good plug-in system, the functionality could be expanded practically forever. Or how about a better system for handwriting recognition? How about a system for communication among students, and between students and professors? How about a specialized Linux distro for elementary schools (yeah, yeah, I know that some already exist)? The possibilities really are virtually infinite.

Especially if this competition was run together with colleges and universities, in addition to whatever prize was already being offered, winning applications could be pre-installed on top of a Linux distro on laptops, and the participating colleges would recommend these laptops to students.

This competition would give universities a chance to get their names on some really cool applications, give students a chance to show their coding and design skills to the world, promote Linux and open source software, and create a wave of new college students using Linux laptops pre-installed with cool applications. In other words, everyone wins.

We have already seen that this sort of model works with Firefox’s Extend Firefox competion and Google’s Adroid Developer Challenge. Now all we need to do is apply this model to Linux applications designed for students.