If you have a college student on summer break at your house (as I do), you might be lamenting that your refrigerator is always empty and you can’t find the remote.  If the “get a job’ and ‘mow the lawn’ tactics aren’t getting him or her off the couch, here’s something that might help. 

The Windows Phone Student App-a-thon, running through September 15 is open to full and part-time students of U.S. colleges. Participants do have to be U.S. residents age 18 or older as well.

The prizes at stake:

• The first 1000 students with applications accepted into the Marketplace get a free XBox game,
• Each week two randomly selected entries will win a $25 gift card, and
• The student with the most applications published by the end of the contest period will win a Windows Phone.

In retrospect, you don’t even have to get them off the couch to participate – so it’s a win-win proposition for all!