Fancy using your skills to really make a difference to charities around the world? Well, you might be interested in the major competition the Office team have launched for developers to design an Office 2007 application between now and Oct 1st. The aim is to design an application that helps your favourite charity. If your app design wins - you and your chosen charity could share in prizes of over $160K to help put your plan in action.

So - what do you have to do to enter? Well, you don't have to actually build the app before Oct 1st - you just need to register, download the beta and plan you app. You submit the plan through a powerpoint template. If you get through the semi-finals and win the grand or 1st runner-up prize, you'll be invited to join a team of HP and Microsoft professionals to build and install your solution for your charity of choice (this bit is not actually required, but a great opportunity to further help your chose charity and see you app in action!).

App concepts are judged 30% on use of (beta) Office 2007 and 70% of effectiveness of solutions based on charity's needs.

Check out www.developwithoutborders.com for more details - they even have a section to give you some ideas on areas where charities often need better IT support... and good luck with it!