Netflix is giving away $100,000 in prizes as part of a just-launched competition designed to make cloud computing better for everyone. The company is asking developers around the world to help improve the features, usability, reliability, quality and security of computing resources delivered as a service over the Internet - or more commonly known as cloud computing.

Netflix is a pioneer in cloud computing, having adopted the service back in 2009. It's now responsible for every part of the Netflix experience that users see when browsing content and streaming to their device. Neil Hunt , chief product officer at Netflix, said the competition is designed to improve the understanding of what it takes to build native applications for the cloud that take full advantage of the opportunities for scalable computing.

The entry period for the Netflix Cloud Prize runs from March 13, 2013 through September 15, 2013. Netflix is dividing the contest into 10 different categories, each judged by a panel of independent, renowned technology pioneers: Amazon.com Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Werner Vogels , Thoughtworks Chief Scientist Martin Fowler , Strategist Simon Wardley, Telx Senior Vice President and author of Cloudonomics Joe Weinman, University of Aarhus Developer Training Expert Aino Corry and Netflix Cloud Vice President Yury Izrailevsky

Netflix will award a Grand Prize of $10,000 cash, $5,000 worth of AWS promotional credits and a paid trip for you and a friend to attend the Amazon Web Services conference in Las Vegas in November to each category winner.