Online Innovation Challenge Rules and Terms

This page was last updated 5 May2014 to clarify details of the Grand Prize trip and People's Choice Award.

Definitions

  • CFR: Code For Resilience.

  • CFR Team: Administrators of the Code For Resilience activity.

  • OIC: Online Innovation Challenge

  • Participant: An individual who is enrolled in the OIC.

  • Project An idea or proof-of-concept of an application that addresses a problem. Projects are likely to be prototypical, untested and unrefined, and they are posted to the projects page of the CFR website.

  • App: An evolved and refined project that has reached a level of sophistication and usability appropriate for deployment and impact. After workign on their projects during the OIC mentoring process, participants will submit their apps to the apps marketplace on the CFR website.

  • Finalists: Finalists are nominated based on the OIC judging scores. Finalists receive recognition across all OIC channels and represent a shortlist of participants’ apps that are eligible for the grand prize.

  • Winners: Winners are selected from the finalists to receive the grand prize trip to the Understanding Risk conference in London in July 2014. There is no predetermined number of Winners.

  • Grand prize: The grand prize is a trip for at least one representative of each Winning team to London to pitch the idea at the Understanding Risk conference. Awardees must be available 27 June - 3 July 2014.


Participation and enrollment

  • Participation in the OIC is free and open to any developer or firm.

  • A participant is defined as any developer or firm whose project, as posted to the Projects page, is enrolled in the OIC.

  • Participants need not have participated in a CFR hackathon in order to enroll in the OIC.

  • Enrollment in the OIC begins when a participant opts in to the OIC when posting a project to the Projects page.

  • Enrollment is not confirmed until the CFR team contacts the participant and assigns mentors, next steps, etc.

  • Enrollment may be terminated at any point by a representative of CFR if a participant violates any OIC rules.


Use of the platform

  • All participants have the right to use, as frequently as they wish, any of the public communication tools enabled by the CFR website, including contacting other users and participating in forum messaging.

  • Use of appropriate language on these channels is required.

  • Confidentiality of information exchanged between participants and mentors in the discussion forums is provided via locked forums that only authorized participants can access. However, sharing passwords and other sensitive data is done at the users’ risk.

  • All official messaging by the CFR team will be done in English, though participants are welcome to use local languages in specific discussion threads.


General competition rules

  • Participants can work on more than one project and app.

  • Participants must indicated how their projects and apps address specific DRM challenges by linking them to Problems on the website. Enrollment may be terminated if a project or app does does not sufficiently address a DRM challenge.

  • Participants may only submit projects or apps for which they have the legal rights and intellectual property.

  • Participants’ projects are only eligible for mentorship if they have been properly posted - with sufficient details as determined by the CFR team during the validation phase (see next section) - to the CFR website’s Projects page.

  • Participants’ apps are only eligible for judging and prizes if they have been properly posted - with sufficient details as determined by the CFR team during the validation phase (see next section) - to the CFR website’s Apps page.

  • Dates and deadlines are subject to change without notice.

  • If a submission deadline is provided as a date, the specific time is 11:59pm on that date, in the time zone from which the submission derives.

  • These rules may be changed during the competition; every attempt to fairly notice participants of such changes will be made.


Project and apps validation

  • After deadlines for submitting projects and apps have passed, the CFR team will manage a process of validation. Validation may include: excluding irrelevant, inappropriate or illegal projects or apps; working with participants to refine/update project or app listings to provide more detail; or other quality assurance mechanisms.

  • Only projects or apps which pass the validation phase may proceed to the next phase.

  • Projects and apps will not be validated if they are:

    • Illegal in the U.S. or participants’ country;

    • Primarily political, sectarian or religious in nature;

    • Discriminatory to any group;

    • Related to weapons, tobacco, adult themes, etc.


Licensing

  • When they submit an app to the CFR website, participants must mark the license that applies by selecting one from the “License” field.

  • Although the OIC advocates for open-source licensing on all submissions, proprietary apps are eligible.

  • Subject to any third-party agreements participants may make:

    • Participants own any applicable intellectual property rights of their apps;

    • Participants may permit free or paid access and use of their apps;

    • Any in-app advertising must conform to the rules of the OIC (regarding offensive language, etc.)

  • By submitting an app to the OIC, participants grant the World Bank a royalty-free license, for a period not to exceed one year unless otherwise agreed, to:

    • Post on World Bank and associated websites information about the application including, but not limited to, details about the storyline, characters, screenshots, etc., and a link to the downloadable application in the online store of the applicable software platform (e.g. Android Play Store, Apple Store) or, if not sold through such platform, to your website.

    • Publicize the names of Competition participants (including the individual members of a team) and winners, and their Applications through media and events of the organizer’s choosing.

    • Deploy or otherwise utilize the application.


Evaluation and Finalists selection criteria

  • Projects and apps will be validated according to the rules outlined above.

  • Apps will be evaluated by judges based on the following criteria:

    • Does the app address DRM problem statements? (1-5)

    • Quality of user interface (1-5)

    • Technical and operational feasibility (1-5)

    • Economic and financial feasibility (1-5)

    • Creativity and innovation (1-5)

  • Judges’ scores are confidential.

  • Judges’ scores will be compiled by the CFR team to determine the Finalists.

  • A "People's Choice Award" will automatically select one Finalist under the following terms and conditions:
    • Each validated app's team will select a hashtag (10 character maximum)
    • Between 12 - 16 May (dates subject to change), tweets including both a team's hashtag and the Code For Resilience Twitter handle will be aggregated, with the team with whose hashtag is mentioned the most winning the People's Choice Award.
    • Any team determined to have used spam, bots, or other unfair means of increasing their tweet count will be disqualified from the competition.
    • The winner of the People's Choice Award is automatically considered a Finalist.

Evaluation and Winners selection process

  • The Winners, selected from the Finalists, will be determined by a World Bank panel convened by the CFR team considering the following elements:

    • Judges scores submitted to the CFR team

    • Internal assessment by the CFR team, including consultations with CFR partners, the depth of project and app information on the CFR website, team effort, consultations with potential Winners, availability of winning teams' representatives (must be available 27 June - 3 July), relevance to a World Bank-specific project or problem, engagement with OIC resources including Mentors (when relevant), etc.