Competition Rules
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Definitions
1. Eligibility
2. Entry Fees
3. Content
4. Phase 1 Entries
5. Phase 2 Entrants, Elevator pitch and networking evening
6. Team formation and Phase 2 submission
7. Phase 3 - The Boot Camp finals
8. Judging
9. Prizes
10. Confidentiality
11. Intellectual property protection
Competitions Disclaimer
Definitions
“The Challenge” or “CTC”: The CleanTech Challenge
“Phase 1 Entrant”: the individual or individuals who submits an idea in Phase 1 of the Competition.
“Phase 1 Entry”: the idea submitted by the Phase 1 Entrant
“Successful Phase 1 Entrants”: Phase 1 Entrants whose ideas are selected to proceed to Phase 2 of the CTC.
“Phase 2 Entrants”: Individuals who successfully register for Phase 2 of the CTC (being those individuals who wish to team up with Phase 1 winners to form Phase 2 Teams)
“Phase 2 Teams”: Teams of individuals who apply to take part in Phase 3 of the CTC (the ‘Boot Camp’), comprising Phase 1 Winners and Phase 2 Entrants
“Phase 2 Entry”: the documentation submitted by Phase 2 Teams in order to apply for Phase 3 of the CTC (the Boot Camp).
“Successful Phase 2 Teams”: Phase 2 Teams that are selected to take part in Phase 3 (the Boot Camp).
Entrants: Phase 1 Entrants, Phase 2 Entrants or Phase 2 Teams.
“Boot Camp” and “Phase 3”: The finals of the CTC attended by all Successful Phase 2 Teams.
“CTC Organisers”: Members of the CTC Committee and designated representatives of UCL and LBS
“CTC Officials”: CTC Organisers, Judges, Mentors
1. Eligibility
1.1 The following are eligible to participate in The Challenge: any Postgraduate student registered on any Postgraduate degree programme (Masters or Doctoral) at a participating School or College during the academic year 2010/2011. Entrants may be disqualified if the Organisers (at their sole discretion) consider the entrant not eligible to participate.
1.2 The LBS and UCL CTC Committee members may not enter the competition.
1.3 All Entrants must be aged 18 or over.
1.4 Phase 1 Entrants that have already secured arrangements for capital from any source must disclose the amounts and sources as an addendum to their entries. Example sources of capital include cash generated from sales revenues, venture capital, proof of concept funding, contracts and personal or family funds. Given the purpose of the competition is to take ideas through to ‘proof of concept’ phase, entries may be disqualified if the Organisers (at their sole discretion) consider the funding already secured to have enabled development beyond this stage.
2. Entry fees
2.1 There are no entry fees
3. Content
3.1 All entries must be the original work of the Entrants.
3.2 All entries and presentations (including verbal and written material) made as part of the Challenge should be made with full understanding of your Institution’s regulations on Intellectual Property Rights. It is the responsibility of the entrant to ensure that no third party, such as a research sponsor or another member of your Institution who participated in your research, has any rights on the contents which may prevent its disclosure and exploitation. Such Proprietary Information relating to the Idea should not be disclosed.
4. Phase 1 Entries:
4.1 Phase 1 Entrants must be registered on the CTC website (www.cleantechnologychallenge.com) and Phase 1 Entries must be posted on the online CTC platform (powered by Skipso) before 11.59pm CET on the day of the deadline. A link to the platform will be posted on the CTC website.
4.2 By Submitting a Phase 1 Entry, Phase 1 Entrants Acknowledge and agree to be bound by Terms of the ‘Competitions Disclaimer’ as set out in these Guidelines. As part of submitting their Phase 1 Entries, Phase 1 Entrants give permission to the CTC Organisers to allow their Phase 1 Submissions to be posted on the CTC website to be viewed by all Phase 2 Entrants
4.3 Phase 1 Entries may be no more than 200 words in length. Such Entries longer than 200 words may be truncated without notice or consultation before being passed to judges.
4.4 No Phase 1 Entries will be accepted after the deadline.
4.5 Successful Phase 1 Entrants will be notified by email. The decision of the judges is final. No correspondence will be entered into between any applicant and the judges.
5. Phase 2 Entrants, Elevator pitch and networking evening:
5.1 Phase 2 Entrants must register on the CTC website (www.clean technologychallenge.com) in order to be able to communicate with successful Phase 1 entrants, with the intention of forming teams for the Boot Camp finals.
5.2 By submitting their application, Phase 2 Entrants acknowledge and agree to be bound by the ‘Competition Disclaimer’ as set out in these Guidelines.
5.3. All successful Phase 1 Entries will be circulated to Phase 2 Entrants and other Successful Phase 1 Entrants.
6. Team formation and Phase 2 submission:
6.1 Phase 2 Entries must be received by the specified deadline of 19th March 2010. Such Entries must be made on the forms supplied on the CTC online competition (powered by Skipso), accessible through the CTC website (www.cleantechnologychallenge.com).
6.2 The Organizers will not take any part in or otherwise be responsible for the formation of the Phase 2 Teams . The selection of the team members will be the sole responsibility of the originator of the Phase 1 Entry. The organizers of the CTC cannot take any responsibility for the failure of a successful Phase 1 Entrants to find additional team members.
6.3 The Organizers expect that the teams have not worked before the start of the Challenge on their idea and that the team was formed in 2010 specifically to work on the Challenge. Teams may be disqualified if the Organisers (at their sole discretion) consider this condition violated.
6.4 Applicants acknowledge and accept that the purpose of Phase 2 of the competition is to build interdisciplinary teams (e.g. business students and science/engineering students). We believe that the most successful ventures are likely to comprise management teams that combine technical expertise and experience to develop the product and the business expertise and experience to manage the commercial development of the product. Our objective is to create real early stage businesses run by teams with the right mix of competent and committed individuals. This will be one of the criteria used by our judges throughout In order to ensure that all such teams are compete on the same footing,. We impose further conditions relating to the composition of Phase 2 Teams : - In order to ensure a mixture of skills and experiences, Phase 2 Teams should contain at least one student registered on a technical or scientific degree and one registered on a business-related degree.
6.4. Phase 2 Teams can be no smaller than two persons and no larger than five. A team of four persons is ideal.
6.5. Phase 2 Teams shall be required to submit an original of the ‘NDA for Entrants’ signed by each member of the Phase 2 Teams. This must be received by the Organisers by 17th May. Failure to provide this document will result in the Phase 2 Entry being disqualified.
7. Phase 3 - The Boot Camp finals:
Successful Phase 2 Teams must ensure that they are available for the full-two days during the Boot Camp finals to attend the seminars, work in teams and be mentored to develop their final pitch
7.2. The Organisers will issue a ‘challenge’ to the teams during the course of the Boot Camp. Teams will then be given an equal amount of time to address this challenge, following which they will present their response to the ‘challenge’ to a panel of judges and fellow Phase 3 participants.
7.3. Following the presentations the Phase 3 judges will meet and declare the winner. The decision of the Judges will be final.
8. Judging:
The judging panels of all of the competitions will be coordinated by London Business School and University College London with the CTC co-Presidents. Phase 1 submissions will be sifted to ensure the quality of entries. Phase 2 Entries and Phase 3 (Boot Camp) presentations will be judged by a panel of judges with expertise in the CleanTech – as investors, entrepreneurs or those with experience in the sector.
8.2. The Organisers, acting on advice from the judges, reserve the right to disqualify any entry that, in its opinion, violates the letter or the spirit of the competition.
8.3. Neither the judges nor the Organisers will enter into any correspondence relating to any Phase 1 Entries or phase 2 Entries. The decision of the judges will be final.
8.4. All prizes are awarded at the discretion of the judging panel and all judging decisions are final and not subject to appeal.
9. Prizes:
9.1 The winner of the Boot Camp finals will be awarded a cash prize of £5,000. This prize shall be divided equally amongst members the winning team.
10. Confidentiality:
10.1. Entrants acknowledge that in an open competition such as the CTC it is difficult to maintain confidentiality whilst at the same time enabling ideas to be shared and developed by other Entrants. Entrants should therefore be aware that:
- Whilst the ‘Competitions Disclaimer’ binds Entrants to “respect the confidentiality of any information disclosed by the other Entrant/s of the Competition”, this undertaking provides minimal protection in law and therefore Successful Phase 1 Entries should be treated as if they are in the public domain since they will be made freely available to other Entrants during the final team formation phase and during (optional) local networking sessions. Any information disclosed during this Phase should therefore be ‘non-confidential’.
- Whilst the NDA for Entrants offers some protection in Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the Challenge, Entrants are strongly advised not to disclose any information that may compromise their ability to secure protection of their intellectual property since such information will be available to other members of Phase 2 Teams (as they collectively work on the idea) and by other Successful Phase 2 Teams during the course of the Boot Camp.
- The Organisers will ask that Phase 2 and Phase 3 judges sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (as set out in the ‘NDA for Judges’ agreement as set out in these Guidelines). However, Entrants recognize that many investors decline to enter into such agreement on the basis that they see many similar early ideas and cannot compromise their own positions by entering into such NDA agreements.
10.2. Phase 2 Entries will be seen only by Phase 2 judges (and other members of Phase 2 Teams).
10.3. Phase 3 presentations will be seen by Phase 3 judges and may be seen by other Successful Phase 2 Teams attending the Boot Camp.
11. Intellectual property protection:
11.1. The Organisers will ensure that:
- All Entrants sign the ‘Competitions Disclaimer’ agreement set out in these Guidelines.
- All Phase 2 Teams sign an ‘NDA for Entrants’ agreement as set out in these Guidelines.
- All Judges as asked to sign the ‘NDA for Judges’ as set out in these Guidelines.
11.2. The Organisers, LBS and UCL will take no further responsibility to protect the intellectual property or any other rights of any Entrant. The protection of intellectual property or other rights of the Entrants is the ultimate responsibility the Entrant in who possesses such intellectual property or other rights. If in doubt, Entrants should seek professional advice on the issues surrounding Intellectual Property Ownership and Rights.
11.3. Please also refer to the Intellectual Property Guide on the following pages.
Competitions Disclaimer
To be read and approved by Entrants during the online registration on the Skipso website
Definitions:
Entrant: Individual or team that submits an Entry to the CTC (in any Phase of the CTC).
Entry: material submitted to the CTC by an Entrant.
Ideas: Ideas and concepts contained in an Entry
Presentation: Verbal presentation and presentation materials made by an Entrant as part of the Challenge
Guidelines: Located within the Rules section of the Competitions Handbook
Organisers: Members of the CTC Committee and designated representatives of UCL and LBS
Officials: Organisers, CTC judges and mentors
By submitting an Entry to the Competition the Entrant(s) agrees to the following conditions:
Originality
Entrants declare that:
- the Ideas embodied in Phase 1 and Phase 2 Entries are the original work of the Entrant(s) and their exploitation will not, to the best knowledge of the Entrant(s) (but without having made any specific enquiries) infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party.
- Neither the Ideas nor the Entrant(s) is subject to any agreement or restriction which would prohibit or restrict the disclosure or submission of the Entry to the CTC or exploitation of the Ideas in accordance with the Entry concerned.
Compliance
We confirm that we have read the Guidelines and by signing this Disclaimer certify that our Entry complies with, and we agree to abide by, those Guidelines.
Liability
We acknowledge that the Officials are volunteers, assisting with a student run, minimal entry fee, prize competition, and have no duty to provide any advice or service to any Entrant. In particular, but without imitation, any views expressed by Officials are their own opinions, given in good faith, and not those of the LBS, UCL, its subsidiaries, the Organisers, Officials or any other person or entity.
Teaching is provided as teaching only (not advice) and is not a substitute for professional advice necessary to develop any idea into a commercial venture.
Understanding
We understand that the Officials will take reasonable steps to keep Entries confidential, subject to the need to share and circulate information as necessary to facilitate smooth running of the Competition. We acknowledge and agree that legal protection of the intellectual property rights in any Entry beyond that provided by signature of the Judges Non‐Disclosure Agreement is the sole responsibility of the Entrants. In consequence we understand and agree that, save in relation to personal injury or death caused by negligence or in respect of fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation,
(a) No warranties are made in relation to the Competition or views expressed by or conduct of Officials; and that
(b) Neither the Officials nor LBS nor UCL shall be liable for any damages or expenses of whatsoever nature and howsoever arising (and whether in contract, tort, negligence or for breach of statutory duty or misrepresentation) in connection with an Entry, the Competition or views given by Officials, including without limitation any indirect, incidental or consequential loss.
The Entrant/s agrees to respect the confidentiality of any information disclosed by the other Entrant/s of the Competition.
