Competition Rules and Guidelines - Malaysia

Definition

In these rules, “IEEE Innovation Nation”, “IEEE IN”, “we”, “our”, and “us” refer to the competition and its organizers and “you” and “yourself” refers to an eligible entrant. By entering, you agree to be bound by these Official Rules and Regulations.

Overview

The competition will take place over three (3) months. Teams must register by the deadline to compete. The technical documentation and feasibility of the said initial submission will be judged and the top teams (10-15 teams) will be selected to participate in the competition. The selected teams will then undergo a training programming to hone their skills until the finals. The finals of the competition will be held in December where the teams pitch their refined business ideas based on the training and mentoring they have received.

The training will comprise of two main components;

1. Startup library: A collection of topics addressing all aspects of the startup life cycle developed according to the IEEE Innovation Nation Curriculum
2. Startup therapy sessions: Mentoring sessions with our Subject Matter Experts on topics you would like to get advice on.

At the end of the training, you will graduate as an “IEEE Innovation Nation Fellow”. A digital badge usable in your social profiles (e.g., Linkedin), a transcript and a certificate will be issued as evidence of you receiving the training.

In addition to that, a total of $5000 USD will be up for grabs as prizes for the winners of the final competition!

Eligibility

You are eligible to enter if you meet the following requirements at the time of entry:

• Teams and Mentors

• Each team may consist of minimum two (2) and maximum five (5) members in order to submit a single entry as a team. 
• The team leader must be a residential citizen or foreigner who has affiliation with Malaysian higher institution /college/ university
• Each participant may only belong to one (1) team within the competition.
• Each team is solely responsible for its own cooperation and teamwork. In no event will sponsors officiate in any dispute regarding the conduct or cooperation of any Team or its members. 
• All team will be registered under Malaysia track. If the registered team has at least one (1) Sarawakian member, the team is eligible to compete in both Malaysia and Sarawak Track.
• It is only open to participants with college or university affiliation which includes diploma/degree undergraduate/postgraduate students or any diploma/degree graduates who are 18 years old and above.

Innovation Nation will have a pool of mentors specializing in different areas. These mentors will be assigned to respective teams to help give constructive feedback during mentoring sessions. Each team is to maximize the time given during the mentoring session to ask questions and feedback from the mentors.

The competition aims to inspire innovation and to assess the creativity and knowledge of the entrants. Therefore, the mentor of your team is strictly expected to, 

• Limit his/her responsibilities as much as to providing general guidance to the team, and he/she should not be involved in the work of the team such that he/she be deemed original authorship or, may result in the claiming of rights or ownership of the submitted entries; and
• Refrain from working on behalf of your team or any individual related to this Competition.

In addition to that, kindly regard that any work done on behalf of teams will not be tolerated and anyone wishing to stay in the competition is advised against doing so.  

• Field of Focus

The entry you submit for the competition should be based on any of the STEM disciplines, wherein each letter respectively refers to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. This is referred to as the “Technological Component” in other parts of the rules submission.

The content of the Entry must address at least one of the Sustainable Development Goals provided by United Nation (https://www.undp.org/) as listed below:

a) SDG#3 – Good Health and Well-Being

b) SDG#9 – Industry,Innovation and Infrastructure

Rules of Submissions

To participate in the bootcamp, Participants must submit a document outlining their idea (“Proposal Deck”), accompanied with information about the Participant(s) and about the Proposal Deck (all together with an “Entry”) through the online submission form. Entries must comply with the following Submission Rules:

1. Proposal Deck must be created by and owned by the participants.
2. Proposal Deck must be submitted in English.
3. Proposal Deck shall provide an innovative and action-oriented business level idea aimed at solving a problem/need. The problem/need must fulfill one of the following Sustainable Development Goals defined by United Nation (https://www.undp.org/):
   a) SDG#3 – Good Health and Well-Being
   b) SDG#9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
4. The idea/solution presented in the proposal deck must use a technological component to solve the said problem/need.
5. The preliminary submission shall consists of 5-10 slides of Proposal Deck addressing the following matter:
   a) Project Title – Written on cover page)
   b) Executive summary – Provide a short executive summary of the idea ( 300 words maximum )
   c) Problem statement – What is the specific problem to be solved using the technological components ( Fulfill either SDG#3 or SDG#9 )
   d) Solution – Describe the solution concept proposed to address this specific problem/need (E.g. A product/service/program/course/initiative etc)
   e) Market or impact survey – A statistical data that could show an impact to increase the value proposition of the proposed solution
6. Proposal deck will be judged based on the following Judging Criteria:
   a) Clarity, scope and relevance of the problem and of proposed solution towards Sustainable Development Goals – SDG#3 or SDG#9
   b) Innovation and originality of the concept and idea;
   c) Market analysis and Potential for impact; 
7. Proposal deck must consist of 5-10 slides maximum, all inclusive – i.e. including all bodies of text, titles, headings, tables, and text boxes etc., except footnotes, end notes, references and appendices.
8. The following information must be provided at the top of the first page of the Proposal: the names of the Participant(s) submitting the Proposal – for teams, all team members’ names must be listed.
9. Participants must submit their Entries by filling and Submitting the “IEEE INNOVATION NATION MALAYSIA 2022 Submission Form” accessible through the IEEE Curtin Malaysia Student Branch website as well as the Facebook page (facebook.com/IEEEINM)
10. Participants must ensure that their Proposal is entered through direct upload, in PDF format and must not be more than 100MB.
11. The deadline for submitting Entries is 11:59 PM (Malaysia/Singapore time), 30th September 2022 ( Friday ). An entry is timely and will be accepted only if received before this time. Requests for deadline extension will not be entertained under any circumstances.

The sample project proposal can be download using this link. The Proposal must be presented in the manner given in the Sample Project Proposal though the participants are allowed to include additional details proven such that it does not alter the original template.

Judging Criteria

The entry will be analyzed and judged based upon the following judging criteria: (a) Clarity, scope and relevance of the problem and of proposed solution; (b) Innovation and originality of the concept; (c) Market analysis and Potential for impact; (d) Business plan including commercialization and sustainable plan.

In the event of a tie between any eligible entries, the Judging Panel shall determine, in its sole and absolute discretion, the mechanism to settle the tie. The decisions of the judges are final and binding. Note that this is an open competition that encourages innovation in any form and doesn’t preclude any approach or solution compliant with these guidelines.

Ineligibility and Disqualification of Teams

Please bear in mind that we will disqualify any incomplete or illegible entries that we receive. We will not be held responsible for any entries that we do not receive, or for entries that we receive, but are not uninterpretable for any reason.   

We will not accept any entries that may contain any inappropriate, offensive or illegal content that may jeopardize this event in any way.

Other Information

• You are responsible to check the website and social media pages for any amendments to this original document as we will make announcements through those platforms. Changes, if made, will be clearly visible across versions of this document.
• If a team submits multiple entries for the same product/service, the most recent one will be used for judging.

Disclosure

By submitting an Entry in this competition, you retain the individual right to your work and derivative, but you grant us your royalty-free, irrevocable permission to,

• Share Entries, documents and revised versions of documents and all other entry-related contents only with the permitted third parties including the Judges and Mentors, solely on the purpose to review, analyze, test and judge your content along the Judging Criteria mentioned and, to provide guidance and mentorship corresponding to the content of your entry; and
• Feature entries of selected elite teams and any content related to it, in providing exposure to the participants’ work and in the promotion of the competition in any forms, including but not limited to photographs and presentations via media. We will be sending any content we plan to publish related to your entry prior to publishing. You may request changes or reject publishing of the content as you may desire.

Please note that we are not claiming any ownership of your entry, other than what was stated above and we will not be obligated to provide you with any compensation for the use of your entry beyond that has been already describe