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OPEN ONLY TO FULL-TIME/PART-TIME/EXECUTIVE STUDENTS ATTENDING GRADUATE BUSINESS SCHOOL IN PURSUIT OF A MASTERS IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION OR SIMILAR DEGREE.
General Terms. Entry in the Innovation Challenge®, available on the World Wide Web at http://www.innovationchallenge.com (the "Site"), constitutes entrants' full and unconditional agreement to and acceptance of these Official Contest Rules.
This contest is a competition involving substantial skill that will be open for enrollment from August 15, 2011 until October 7, 2011. The sponsor of this contest, Idea Crossing, Inc. (the "Sponsor"), reserves the right to cancel this contest for any reason that it deems appropriate, including, without limitation, a computer virus, bug or other technical problem that corrupts the administration, security or proper functioning of this contest. Should this contest be cancelled prior to the final date for entry, notice will be posted on the Site. All decisions regarding the Contest shall be made in the sole judgment of the Sponsor, and such decisions shall be final.
Entrants agree that the Sponsor, any of the Contest's sponsoring companies and their respective directors, officers, employees, attorneys and other agents or representatives shall not be responsible or liable for damages or losses of any kind arising out of or resulting from entry and participation in this contest, acceptance or use of a prize or any other matter related to this contest, including, without limitation, claims based on property damage, violation of intellectual property rights, personal injury and/or death, publicity rights, taxes or other duties, defamation or invasion of privacy or any other legal claims.
Entry
To enter, entrants must complete and submit the online registration information and confidentiality agreement and pay the team enrollment fee by 5:00 P.M. (Pacific Time) October 7, 2011. The enrollment fee is $125.00 per team, except that the "early" team enrollment fee is $99.00 per team for any entry before 5:00 P.M. (Pacific Time) September 23, 2011.
Upon entry, only team leaders will be asked to submit a preference of the challenge category. The Innovation Challenge executive team will make every effort to assign each team their top preference. However, should a team receive a second or third preference, no changing or switching of categories among other competitor teams will be permitted.
For the first round of judging, Innovation Challenge questions will be assigned to each entrant's team on October 8, 2011 and each entrant's team must submit its new concept plan entry online at the Site by 5:00 P.M. IN THE EVENING (Pacific Time) October 21, 2011. Only one Innovation Challenge question will be assigned to each team. Each new concept plan entry must have been created solely by the entrant's team for the purpose of entering this contest and cannot have been previously published or used for any purpose. Each new concept plan entry should also meet the judging criteria discussed under "Selection of the Winner" below.
Team Formation
Entrants may compete either individually or as a team. Teams shall consist of a maximum of five entrants and a minimum of one entrant. Team members that compete at the beginning of the contest must participate throughout the contest, except that teams may make one substitution during the contest upon written approval of the Sponsor. No team may enter more than once; no entrant may compete on more than one team.
Entrants are encouraged to form cross-functional teams of two to five members so long as at least one member of the team is enrolled as a full-time or part-time (executive) MBA candidate or a similar program. If the team has more than two members, the remaining team members may be graduate students of any graduate program offered by any other university.
New Concept Plan
Entries will respond to Innovation Challenge questions prepared by the Sponsor in coordination with the contest's sponsoring companies. Each Innovation Challenge question will represent an area where a sponsoring company wants to generate new innovative ideas, whether for a particular product, service, business model, brand or strategy. One Innovation Challenge question will be assigned randomly to each team.
The Sponsor is not responsible for new concept plan entries that are late, lost, stolen, misdirected or non-deliverable due to any reason whatsoever, including, without limitation, online communication malfunction or failure, computer or computer program malfunction or failure or human error that may occur in the processing of entries to this contest. In the event of a dispute about the identity of any entrant, an online registration will be declared as if made by the authorized account holder of the e-mail address submitted at time of entry.
Unlawful, plagiarized, third-party intellectual property infringing, unintelligible, illegible, obscene, indecent or incomplete new concept plan entries will be disqualified in the Sponsor's sole discretion. The Sponsor reserves the right to scrutinize all new concept plan entries for these requirements at any time during or after the Contest.
New concept plan entries shall become the property of the Sponsor and/or the sponsoring companies, as applicable, and will not be returned. In consideration of and as a condition to the eligibility of each new concept plan entry under the terms of this contest, each entrant hereby agrees that all materials, ideas, writings and other property, whether or not copyrightable, created or adapted by him, whether alone or in conjunction with any other person, arising out of or created in connection with a new concept plan shall be "work made for hire" for the Sponsor and/or the sponsoring companies, as applicable, within the meaning of the United States copyright laws, and as such the sole exclusive property of Sponsor and/or the sponsoring companies, as applicable. To the extent that the foregoing is insufficient to grant the Sponsor and/or the sponsoring companies, as applicable, all rights in and to a new concept plan, each entrant hereby assigns, transfers and conveys, exclusively to Sponsor and/or the sponsoring companies, as applicable, effective upon submission of a new concept plan entry in this contest, all right, title and interest of any kind whatsoever, in and to the new concept plan entry submitted as entrant's team entry, including any and all copyrights thereto (and the exclusive right to register copyrights) related to the new concept plan. Further, each entrant hereby assigns, transfers and conveys, exclusively to Sponsor and/or the sponsoring companies, as applicable, effective upon submission of a new concept plan entry in this contest, any know-how, methodologies and processes, discoveries, and innovations conceived by entrant in connection with or related to the new concept plan that may be the subject of a patent or trade secret or any other intellectual property right. By entering, each entrant warrants and represents that the members of entrant's team are the sole authors and creators of the new concept plan entry submitted, that each entrant has not previously assigned such intellectual property rights or any portion thereof to any other person, that the new concept plan entry does not violate any applicable law and that the new concept plan entry does not infringe or violate any intellectual property right held by any third person.
Eligibility Requirements
This contest is open only to persons age 18 and older who are full-time/part-time/executive students attending graduate business school in pursuit of a Masters in Business Administration or similar degree. Employees of the Sponsor, its affiliates, subsidiaries, employees, agents or other representatives of any kind and their immediate families are not eligible to participate.
Prize(s)
One first-place grand prize of $20,000 will be awarded. One second-place prize of $3,000 will be awarded and one third place prize will be awarded of $2,000. All three prizes will be equally split among the entrants on each winning team. Additionally, the top three teams will be invited to participate in the ringing of the bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Each team will be responsible for providing their own transportation and accommodations to and from New York City.
Odds of Winning
The odds of winning depend upon the total number of entries received.
Selection of the Winner
The winning teams will be selected based upon the rounds of the competition and correlated judging described below.
Qualifying Round
The qualifying round of judging will take place between October 24, 2011 and November 7, 2011. Within the qualifying round there will be two phases of judging. In judging phase one, each new concept plan entry will be evaluated by two or more judges using a 100-point scale and a judging scorecard. Each new concept plan entry will be awarded points based upon the criteria on the judging scorecard, as these criteria are generally detailed on the appropriate page of the Site. In judging phase two, at least the top thirty (new concept plan entries in point value will then be judged again by no fewer than two judges using a 100-point scale, a judging scorecard and the point system discussed above. Semifinalist teams will be announced on November 12, 2011. Five teams in each sponsor category will be promoted to a semi-final round.
Semi-Final Round
For the semi-final round of judging, semifinalist teams will receive feedback on their new concept plan entry from each of their respectively assigned sponsoring companies during a telephone conference call between November 14, 2011 thru November 18, 2011. Semifinalist teams will revise their new concept plan entries based upon the feedback and submit the revised new concept plan entry to the Sponsor before November 28, 2011. The revised new concept plan entry will be in the form of a PowerPoint presentation slide deck as instructed by the Sponsor. Each semifinalist team will present the revised new concept plan entry to the applicable sponsoring company via an "online web" meeting facilitated by the Sponsor between November 30, 2011 thru December 2, 2011. All revised new concept plan presentation materials (i.e., the PowerPoint presentation slide deck) must be submitted to the Sponsor prior to the oral presentations.
Out of the top five semifinalist teams for each sponsoring company's question, the sponsoring company will select one new concept plan entry that will proceed to the final round as determined by each sponsoring company. The top three concept plan entries will be announced on or around December 3, 2011 on the Site.
The entrants from the teams with the top new concept plan entries will be notified by e-mail, phone and/or mail as soon as possible after the selection of the top new concept plan entries. Such entrants will be required to execute and return an Affidavit of Eligibility / Release of Liability and Publicity and any other appropriate documentation (which will be attached or enclosed with the notification) within three (3) business days of its sending or alternate entries may be selected as the top new concept plan entries.
Final Round
The final round of judging will take place between December 5, 2011 through December 9, 2011. This round of judging will be an oral competition among the top teams from the semi-final round. Each top team will present the revised new concept plan entry to a panel of experts and the sponsoring companies via an "online web" meeting facilitated by the Sponsor. All revised new concept plan presentation materials, such as PowerPoint presentations, charts, spreadsheets, graphs, drawings and mockups, must be submitted to the Sponsor prior to the oral presentations.
Teams may not seek assistance from any person other than its own entrants.
The order in which teams present their revised new concept plans will be determined by the Innovation Challenge executive team ahead of time and all teams and judges will be provided with an agenda prior to the final round. All teams may view presentations by all competing teams. Each team will have no more than fifteen minutes to present to the judges. At the end of the fifteen-minute period, a moderator will stop the presentation, whether the team has finished or not. Upon completion of each presentation, the judges may question a team for approximately ten minutes. Then, using a 100-point scale, a judging scorecard and the point system discussed above, the judges will rate each new concept plan presentation. The judges will use this initial ranking as a starting point for final deliberations to be held in private (i.e., no teams will be allowed to participate or listen to the final deliberations). The winners will be determined at the sole discretion of the final round judging panel and their decision will be final and binding.
The entrants from the winning teams will be notified via email and/or mail on December 9, 2011. Such entrants will be required to execute and return an Affidavit of Eligibility / Release of Liability and Publicity and any other appropriate documentation (which will be delivered or attached or enclosed with the notification) within fourteen (14) business days of its delivery or sending or alternate entries may be selected as the winning teams. The Sponsor reserves the right to change the format of the final round of the competition by posting notice on this Site.
In all rounds of judging, the judges will be comprised of business community members selected by the Sponsor. The selection of the judges, as well as all decisions related to and interpretations of these Official Contest Rules, will made in the sole discretion of the Sponsor and shall be final.
The winning entrants agree by accepting or using the prize to allow the Sponsor to use his or her name, likeness, entry contents, biographical data, statements and any other related information for any purpose without additional permission or compensation, unless prohibited by law. Allow up to four weeks after the Sponsor's receipt of the executed Affidavit of Eligibility / Release of Liability and Publicity for receipt of the prize by standard ground shipping. The Sponsor will pay for such standard ground shipping. ALL FEDERAL, STATE AND/OR LOCAL TAXES ARE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WINNER.
The Sponsor is not responsible for any selection procedure notifications or other contest communications that are late, lost, stolen, misdirected, non-deliverable or illegible due to any reason whatsoever.
List of Winners. The names of the prize winners will be posted on the Site after the selection procedures have been fully satisfied and can also be obtained by mailing a self-addressed stamped envelope to: Skild, Innovation Challenge® List of Winners, 448 South Hill, Suite 815, Los Angeles, CA 90013.
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