01.09.2025Join our avatar design contest!

Duolingo wouldn’t be the same without its owl and our AI Buddy needs a face too! That’s where you come in. Show us your creativity and design the avatar that will bring the AI Buddy to life. After all, who better than UZH students to decide how your Buddy should look like?

How will the contest go?

1. Design your avatar and submit it by October 5th, 2025, at 23:59 on Pollunit.
2. UZH students vote for their favourite avatar design from October 8th to 30th on Pollunit.
3. BIG DAY: October, 31st, 2025: Winners will be announced on the AI Buddy website and contacted via email!

Who can participate? 

• All UZH students
• You can also partner up with other students and share the prize. Important: at least one of you needs to be registered at the UZH.

Please use your UZH email address to submit your design.

Contest rules and design guidelines

The most important thing is that UZH students like the avatar and feels like it represents well an AI assistant for the UZH. That being said, the following guidelines guarantee that we find the best avatar:

• Style:
  • Favour a simple, minimalist design → the avatar should be easily recognizable, even in small size!
  • The avatar should have its own expression that can vary (e.g. eyes, hands, mouth)
• Colours: Use UZH corporate design colours
• Format: .png with a white background. After the contest, you will be asked to share a modifiable format.
• Intellectual property:
  • Be mindful that design should be your own. By submitting a design to this contest, the participant confirms, that he/she is the sole rights holder of the design and that he/she possesses all intellectual property rights associated with this design, including but not limited to copyright, and that no third-party rights are infringed.
  • By submitting a design to this contest, the participant agrees to license their submission under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). This means the organizers and others are free to share and adapt the work, provided appropriate credit is given to the creator.

Our team will ensure the rules are followed and will contact the participant to support possible adjustments if the design falls outside the guidelines. 

Who will decide the winners? 

• UZH student vote in October 2025 for their favourite avatar, the most popular one wins!

What will you win?

• First prize: 500 CHF
• Second prize: 350 CHF
• Third prize: 200 CHF

Do you have any question or need help? 

Contact us at ai-buddy@dsi.uzh.ch, Oriane Pierrès or Antoine Logean will be happy to help you!