Hi Community,

We have some exciting news! It's time for the next InterSystems writing competition:

✍️ InterSystems Technical Article Contest 2025 ✍️

Write an article on any topic related to the InterSystems products and services.

🎁 Prizes for everyone: A special prize for each author participating in the competition!

Prizes

1. Everyone is a winner in the Tech Article Contest! Any member who writes an article during the contest period will receive a special gift:

🎁 4-in-1 Charging Cable

2. Expert Awards – articles will be judged by InterSystems experts:

🥇 1st place: Nintendo Switch OLED / Hogwarts Icons - Collectors' Edition Lego / The X-Mansion Lego

🥈 2nd place: Nintendo Switch Lite / Lamborghini Countach 5000 Quattrovalvole Lego

🥉 3rd place: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite / Retro Radio Lego

Or as an alternative, any winner can choose a prize from a lower tier than his own.

3. Developer Community Award – article with the most likes:

🏅 Amazon Kindle Paperwhite / Retro Radio Lego

Note: 

1. The author can only be awarded once per category (in total, the author will win two prizes: one for Expert and one for the Community)
2. In the event of a tie, the number of votes of the experts for the tied articles will be considered a tie-breaking criterion.  

Who can participate?

Any Developer Community member, except for InterSystems employees (contractors are allowed). Create an account!

Contest period

📝  February 3rd to March 2nd: Publication of articles. 

🗳️  March 3rd to March 9th: Voting time. 

🏅  March 10th: Winners announcement. 

Publish an article(s) throughout this period. DC members can vote for published articles with Likes – votes in the Community award.

Note: The sooner you publish the article(s), the more time you will have to collect both Expert & Community votes.

What are the requirements? 

❗️ Any article written during the contest period and satisfying the requirements below will automatically* enter the competition:

• The article must be about InterSystems products and services. 
• The article must be in English (incl. inserting code, screenshots, etc.).  
• The article must be 100% new.  
• The article cannot be a translation of an article already published in other communities.  
• The article should contain only correct and reliable information about InterSystems technology.
• Article size: 400 words minimum (links and code are not counted towards the word limit).  
• Articles on the same topic but with dissimilar examples from different authors are allowed.

* Our experts will moderate articles. Only valid content will be eligible to enter the contest.

🎯 EXTRA BONUSES

If a contest article is split into multiple parts, bonuses apply only to the first part unless they are specific to a later part, and the same bonus cannot be used for multiple parts.

Proposed topics

Here's a list of proposed topics that will give your article a Topic bonus:

✔️  Using ODBC & JDBC
✔️  Using DB-API
✔️  Using Dynamic SQL & Embedded SQL
✔️  Generating OpenAPI Documentation
✔️  Authentication Related Endpoints (using SSO, OAuth and ZAuth)
✔️  Using isc.rest to develop API
✔️  Embedded Python in Interoperability (Operations, Services, Custom Functions)
✔️  IKO common deployments
✔️  Adapt existing C#, Java, and Python code to IRIS and IRIS interoperability using external language gateways
✔️  GenAI, Vector Search, RAG
✔️  FHIR, EHR, OMOP
✔️  Data Fabric, Data Lake, Data Warehouse, Data Mesh
✔️  Sharding, Mirroring

Need inspiration or an example? Check out the #Best Practices.

It's time to show off your writing skills! 

🖋️ Write. Share. Shine.

Important note: Delivery and prizes vary by country and may not be possible for some of them. A list of countries with restrictions can be requested from @Liubka Zelenskaia