Rules

Entry in the competition implies acceptance of these rules.

1. Organizers

The Apps for Democracy Finland - contest is a category of the 2009 MindTrek competition. The category is organized collaboratively by MindTrek, Somus research consortium, Forum Virium, suomi.fi portal and the state government IT management department (ValtIT). The organizers will not be held responsible if due to a case of force majeure or unexpected event, this competition has to be cancelled, postponed or modified in any way. These conditions include a lack of financing for the event and an insufficient number of projects entered.

2. Eligibility of entry

All service concepts and functional implementations which have been finalized during the previous year after 1st January 2008 are eligible to take part in the competition.

Entries may be submitted by an individual, or by group of named individuals working together. In the latter case, a single contact person should be specified. Any prize will be given to this individual, with the expectation that it will be fairly distributed amongst the group. It will be up to the team to agree the practicalities of sharing the prize. There is no limit to the number of different entries that an individual or a group may submit.

There are three categories in the competition:

Idea category (masterplan)
Library category (ideas related to library)
Implementation category (masterplan and a functional prototype)

All entries should have the documentation of the idea aka. masterplan. Entries which have the masterplan and a functional prototype may participate also to the implementatation category. All entries to the implementation category participate automatically to the idea category.

The competition rules do not place limitations on the technology used in the products. We encourage all entrants to share their work under a flexible and permissive licence in order that others may build upon what they have done. Entrants who do not wish to do so are not prevented from entering, and may receive recognition for their effort. However, winners of the Gold, Silver and Bronze prizes will be expected to deposit a copy of their work licensed under a licence such as the GPL in order that the whole community may benefit.

The jury has the right to reject the participation of an entry if it does not fulfil the participation criteria. All jury decisions are final.

3. Participation

For completing a successful submission, the following information is required from your side:

filled application form (all categories)
documentation of the concept aka. masterplan (all categories)
link (URL) to the functional prototype (implementation category only)

The entry to the implementation category includes the application form, masterplan of the new service and an URL to the functional application. All entries to the implementation category participate automatically also to the idea category or to the library category if the implementation is related to library data. The entry to the idea category or to the library category includes only the application form and the masterplan of the new service.

Masterplan: The masterplan is a short English or Finnish-language description of the concept and the design. The description should present the key characteristics and benefits of the product or service in a concise and marketing-oriented manner. In addition, also other materials supporting the jury in their decision (e.g. sketches, images, power points, word documents, implementations) can be attached to the competition entry. The content of the masterplan should include the following:

Contact details: Your first and last name, physical mailing address (no post office boxes), telephone number, and email address
Summary: Maximum 100 word summary of the application
Problem: Description of the problem that the application is intended to solve
Users: A list of people and/or organizations that you intend to encourage to adopt the application
Use-case: How you envision people and/or organizations using the application
Data: Description and location of the data and services that the application will consume (is this data already public and available in machine readable form or do you need to convince the public organization to co-operate with us)
Instructions and demo: In case of functional implementation clear instructions and an easy to use demo program that allows experimentation with your system will help. For the idea category a demonstartion of the systems intended functionality can be provided for example in the form of video, slideshow or visual mock-up of the user interface.

Entry period: The Contest begins on May 17, 2009. Registration and submission of entries for the competition ends on 31st of August 2009 at 14:00 (+2 GMT). Late entries will not be accepted.

Languages: The official languages of the competition are English and Finnish. Candidates of all nationalities are entitled to enter. All entries have to be submitted either in English or Finnish language.

4. Awards

There are several awards in the Apps for Democracy Finland competition. The total award sum of 13 000 € is devided between the Idea, Library and Implementation categories and the Honorable Mention awards. All awards may not be awarded if the award criteria set by the jury are not fulfilled.

Contestants are eligible to win any of the prizes in idea category or library category and additionally the entries including functional prototype are eligible to win any of the prizes in implementation category.
People choice awards will be granted based on community voting tallies in the Submission Directory. Submit early, often and promote your idea to your network for a greater chance of winning. The top applications in each category with the most votes will win this award.
Contestants can be an individual or a team of individuals; prize money will be awarded to the team leader for distribution to your team.
No single submission in the idea category or in the library category can win more than one Gold, Silver or Bronze prize. However the functional prototypes competing in the implementation category can win a Gold, Silver or Bronze prize in that category even if they allready won in the idea or library category. The People's Choise award and the Honorable Mention awards are independent of the other prizes and can go to the same or different submissions as the other prizes.
The Honorable Mention award's will be granted by judges to entries they consider particularly good in some aspect (ie. the most usable application or the most practical idea).
Contestants can enter as many applications as they like and each app is eligible for a prize according to these rules. Contestant can win an unlimited number of prizes total as long as they are for separate application submissions.

5. Immaterial property rights

The immaterial property rights related to the competition works remain the property of the competitors. The entrants are responsible for ensuring that they have full copyrights to their competition entries and the right to use the works and their elements when participating in the competition.

The material submitted to the award programme remains the property of the author and may not be modified, changed in any way or used in whole or in part for the production of any other work.

6. Evaluation of the entries and the jury

We are interested in entries that genuinely improve the utility of one or more public services and public data for their users (private citizens, groups of people, organizations, companies etc.), and in those entries that raise awareness of issues associated with extending the reach of the public services. Entries will be evaluated on the following broad criteria. These are deliberately loosely defined, in order not to constrain innovative and wide-ranging entries.

Judging criteria for all entries:

Utility and relevance
Inventive and original nature of the idea
Innovation and creativity
Feasibility in terms of technology and production
Presentation

Additional criteria for the implementation category:

Appeal of the application from a usability perspective
Visual implementation and technical functionality

These criteria are only provided as a guide to entrants and to judges. The decision of judges will be final, and they will be encouraged to recognize entries of particular excellence.

The Jury is an expert panel of judges assembled to select the winning entries in this competition. To ensure impartiality of jury members, they may abstain from evaluating a project with which they may have associations that could influence them. They must inform the chairman of the jury of such association. The decision of the jury is final. In addition to the actual jury, MindTrek’s preliminary jury will take part in the evaluation if required, by carrying out a preliminary elimination.

7. Reference rights

The organizers have the right to disseminate information about the competition arrangements, competition entries, the awarding of the winners and other details related to the competition in their marketing and advertising, e.g. on the web and in brochures and newsletters. The submitted works may be used by the organizers without any restrictions or written permission in all presentations, TV broadcasting, CD/DVD productions, CD/DVD compilations and advertisements (internet, CD-ROM, TV, print). The organizers accepts no responsibility with regard to any commercial exploitation by the winners of any celebrity gained within the auspices of this competition.

8. Announcement of the results and presentation of the awards

Awards will be granted by a panel chosen by organizers of the content.
Two People’s Choice awards will be granted based on users’ votes in the Submission Directory.
The winners will be announced at Hotel Rosendahl on 1.10.2009 at the MindTrek Awards Ceremony. Later there will be the Awards Party to honor the winners of the competitions.
Award nominees will be notified in advance. The presence of the nominees at the MindTrek event in October is strongly recommended but not required. We will live stream the event (link here).
MindTrek conference team will heavily promote and market the competition winner across the network and judging partners to users

9. Compensation of the finalists’ travel and other expenses

Any entrants among the finalists will not receive compensation for their travel costs. However, the organizers of the competition will pay for one conference ticket (includes entrance to the MindTrek Awards Party) and one entrance ticket to the MindTrek Awards Party per team for all finalists. The organizers will not pay compensation for any other possible costs incurred by the entrants due to their participation in the competition.