Competition Rules and Guidelines - Sri Lanka

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

Your team may consist of minimum one (1) and maximum five (5) members in order to submit a single entry as a team. Mentors may be from academic institutions, not-for-profit organizations, or private companies.

• Team members must be undergraduate students from a variety of academic institutions or people working in industry. 
• Each competitor 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 IEEE INSL organizers officiate in any dispute regarding the conduct or cooperation of any Team or its members.

• 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. The content of the Entry must address at or provide a solution using at least one of the STEM fields and their subdivisions, including Chemistry, Computer and Information Science and Engineering, Engineering, Geosciences, Life Sciences, Material Research, Mathematical Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, Psychology, Social Sciences and STEM Education and Learning research.

If the entry you submit for the competition supports the theme of self sustaining country or inhouse productions in a country that can survive even with a whole country lockdown situation that would be much in your favor.

Rules of Submissions

To participate in the competition, teams must submit a document outlining their idea (“Pitch Deck”), accompanied with information about the team members through the competition online submission form, which can be found on the IEEE Innovation Nation website. Entries must comply with the following Submission Rules:

1.  Pitch Deck must be submitted in English.
2. Pitch Deck shall provide an overview of your startup idea.
3. Pitch Deck must,
   a) Describe the project introduction specific to a problem statement that the proposed solution seeks to address;
   b) Describe the solution proposed to address this specific problem/need (E.g. a product, service, program, course, initiative etc.); 
   c) Give statistics on the target market (the people who will be impacted by the solution)  
   d) Outline the business model 
   e) Outline the go-to-market strategy
   f) Technologies used to build up
   g) Evaluate the competition and unique selling points of your product/service
   h) Introduce your team members, their roles and qualifications
   i) Tell us the progress you have made so far
4. Pitch Deck will be judged based on the following Judging Criteria: (1) Clarity, scope and relevance of the problem and of proposed solution; (2) Innovation and originality; (3) Feasibility of implementation; (4) Potential for impact. The Judging Criteria is detailed below.
5. Pitch Deck must adhere to the outline given in the Pitch Deck template. You may use any images/slide template/design elements to make it look visually appealing.
6. You may use the sample Pitch Deck from AirBnB as a reference.
7. Participants must ensure that their Pitch Deck is uploaded as a single document, in PDF format and must not be more than 100MB.
8. A 5 minute (max) video can be submitted (optional) together with the Pitch Deck outlining the idea. This is encouraged in order to convey your idea more clearly to the judges. Judging will be based on the idea conveyed in the video and not on the quality of production.
9. An entry is timely and will be accepted only if received before the stipulated deadline. Requests for deadline extension will not be entertained under any circumstances.

Judging Criteria

Each entry will be analyzed and judged based upon the following criteria:

at least one member need to go through all the training schedule to eligible for the final pitching

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.
• A team is eligible to submit more than one entry provided that they are unique and each entry will be judged independently.
• 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 described.