If you’ve a great idea for a Kinect app that could become a commercial success, there’s a chance of getting $20,000 to help you develop it in a three month program in Seattle in Spring 2012.

The Kinect Accelerator is a startup incubator program backed by Microsoft and TechStars.

Ten companies accepted into the program will each be given $20,000, three months, March to May 2012 of free office space in Seattle, and technical tools (the Windows Kinect SDK and an Xbox development kit) to help you build the apps plus technical training, support and mentoring from Microsoft BizSpark and TechStars.

At the end of the 3-month program there's the opportunity to show off your app at a demo day attended by potential investors and Microsoft execs.

So what is Microsoft BizSpark looking for. Well that's very open-ended and can be summed up as:

• Any Kinect-enabled application on Windows or Xbox that can be a commercial business
• Manufacturing to retail, education to healthcare, art installations to gaming, social to interactive play…
• Can be cloud-hosted, on any platform, but needs to be an application

Ten companies will be chosen to take part and they can be startups or already established. No prior experience developing with the Kinect is required, but the business concept does need to leverage Kinect capabilities as part of the final offering, and the app you create has to be applicable to the Xbox 360 as well as other platforms.

TechStar is funding and running the program, Microsoft is providing the office space, so you would have to be willing to spend three months in Seattle. Under the deal, TechStars would get a 6% equity stake in your company, but you’d keep the IP rights to the app.

Applications are being accepted between now and January 25, 2012 and are open to anyone from anywhere. You do have to be legally in the U.S. during the program and BizSpark will help with legal/immigration issues.

More Information:

The Kinect Accelerator

Kinect Accelerator FAQs

Further reading:

Getting started with Microsoft Kinect SDK

All About Kinect

Kinect goes self aware - a warning we think it's funny and something every Kinect programmer should view before proceeding to create something they regret!

Avatar Kinect - a holodeck replacement

Kinect augmented reality x-ray (video)

3D Gesture Input

How Kinect tracks people

Kinect flies

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