"An architect is like an airline pilot, who might not look busy all of the time but use decades of experience to constantly monitor the situation, taking immediate action if they see or hear something out of the ordinary."
A group of senior IT professionals got together in 2015 to create a competition that is a one of a kind opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students. Find more information and details on the SITAC Registration page. Additional FAQs for students, mentors and volunteers available here.
The experience of the past several years of the competition have shown that the competition adds valuable job skills to the student's repertoire. Teams compete to develop an architectural solution for a real world problem, guided by practicing professionals from the industry.
SITAC 2026 will bring into focus the impact of AI in the designing of product and solution architectures. AI is rapidly transforming IT architecture design by enabling data-driven decision making, rapid scenario evaluation, and smarter aligment with organizational objectives. An AI assisted IT architecture design workflow leverages AI at each stage from requirements through deployment for efficiency and insight
Visit the SITAC Past Events and Media Gallery pages for a peek into previous year's competitions.
2026 Competition Timeline*
Registration Opens Nov 09, 2025
Deliverable #1 submission deadline Mid-Feb. 2026
Deliverable #2 submission deadline Mid-Apr, 2026
Grand Finale May 03. 2026
* Deliverables and Finale timelines are tentative and will be finalized in Jan 2026
How to reach us?
Why should I participate?
Opportunity to architect a solution for a real world problem.
Employment & internship opportunities in the greater Seattle area.
Mentoring with practicing architects from Costco, REI, Microsoft, T-Mobile, Nordstorm, F5 Networks Inc. and others.
Attractive prizes in addition to exposure, learning, and employment & internship opportunities.
How do I participate?
Form a team of maximum 3 students of ANY discipline from same or different universities.
Read the competition details and instructions
Register your team for the competition.
Attend orientation sessions for the competition.
Work closely with an assigned mentor -- a practicing architect from the industry.
Develop architecture document comprised of 6 modules.
Deliver presentation to judges, IT professionals & students in the final event.
Who will help me?
Each team can request for and will be assigned a mentor -- a practicing architect from the industry, who will work closely with a team to help understand architecture and provide guidance.
Who will evaluate?
An independent expert panel comprising of Academia & highly experienced IT architects from the industry.
Rules:
Open to fulltime undergraduate & graduate students of ANY discipline.
Must complete all deliverables for the competition.
All deliverables are evaluated by a panel of eminent judges.
Evaluation will be a weighted sum of points for each deliverable.
Solution will be evaluated for innovativeness, realizability & originality.
All judges’ decisions are final.
What are the expectations from a mentor?
Set at least 1 hour per week contact between Mentor / Team. (Can be virtual).
Not allowed to create any deliverable for the project.
Review of the deliverables expected with feedback.
Participate in the final Event.
Conduct Training Sessions.
Provide common guidelines.
How do I become a mentor?
Fill out the sign-up form or
Reach out to the CITAP team at volunteer@iitarch.org.
Are there any other volunteer opportunities?
IT Architecture is an evolving profession and we are always looking for professionals eager to contribute to the community. There are multiple ways to contribute. You can help organize, build templates and artifact models, become a mentor, help sponsorship and many other ways.
How do I volunteer?
Please let us know your areas of interests by filling out the volunteer sign-up form
We look forward to hearing from you
How can I donate funds for the competition?
CITAP is a 501(c)(3) registered non-profit organization so the best way to donate is either by volunteering your time or making cash donations towards 'Community of Information Technology Architecture Practitioners' through your company's donation matching program (if your company supports this). Please reach out to info@citap.org for our organization details if you cannot find us in your company's donation matching portal.
Alternatively you can send us donations via Zelle payments to email id: archcomp@citap.org
Visit our Webinars page for more videos about past webinars and presentations.