Guidelines

The Company Eligibility guideline describes the criteria and attributes for company eligibility to submit their entry nomination for APICTA Award competition.

The companies which are eligible to nominate their ICT applications and products must meet the following criteria:

• The company must be locally registered in the respective APICTA member economy.
• The company can be a 100% local company, or
• A joint venture between a local company and a foreign company. The foreign company in the joint venture can be either a company (ies) registered in the APICTA member economy or a company (ies) from outside the APICTA member economy. Local shareholders must own at least 51% of the total shares.

The product or application for APICTA entry nomination must meet the following criteria:

• The Intellectual Property Right for the product or application must be owned by the company which is eligible to be nominated according to the Company Eligibility guideline, or its Intellectual Property Right is owned by the offshore parent of the local company where the majority owner shareholding is the local company.
• At least 51% of the development efforts, including research and development and design, must have been undertaken within the APICTA member economy from where the application is submitted.

• The nominee must own the student ID from university, senior high school, junior high school or elementary school.
• A maximum of 5 presenters per entry are allowed. Additionally for the Students' Project an observer (the project mentor or supervisor) is allowed to be present.

• A maximum of 5 presenters per entry are allowed.

The followings are non-eligible for entry nomination:

A product, of which the main R&D and design efforts have been undertaken in non-APICTA member economy or of which the company being nominated within the APICTA member economy is providing code-cutting outsourced services.

An entry which has won an APICTA Award during one of the last three APICTA competitions is not eligible as a new entry. In addition, substantial enhancements must have been made on the original winning entry for it to be considered eligible as a new entry. Any such consideration and decision will be at the discretion of the APICTA Judges Subcommittee.

It is the responsibility of the Economy Coordinator and the Executive Committee of each member economy to ensure all its nominated entries meet and comply with the eligibility requirements for the category to which the entry is nominated, in order to avoid any possibility of disqualification.

The Chief Judge of the Host Economy, the Economy Coordinator of each member economy, with the support of the Advisory Panel of Judges, should work together to ensure all entries are qualified for their category.

Violation to the afore-mentioned criteria and attributes could result in entry disqualification during the competition even though the entry has been accepted as an official entry. A disqualification process is available if a judge of the respective category believes that the entry should be disqualified.

The Entry Disqualification Process is as follows:

• A proposal for disqualification of an entry by a judge must be submitted to the Chief Judge accompanied by supporting information that the entry does not qualify as an entry to the category in which the entry was judged or to be judged in accordance to the Entry Nomination Guideline. Submission of such a proposal must be submitted in writing and signed by the proposing judge. A verbal proposal will not be accepted.
• On receiving the disqualification proposal, the Chief Judge, supported by the Advisory Panel of Judges, will examine all relevant and related information about the proposal request as well as inviting the Economy Coordinator for that entry’s member economy for further clarification.
• The Chief Judge decides to either accept or reject the proposal based on the information available.
• The Chief Judge will inform the decision to the respective Economy Coordinator verbally and in writing.
• Whilst the Chief Judge is in the process of examining the disqualification proposal, the entry must be judged and scored with respect to the judging criteria established for the respective category in accordance to the Presentation Schedule.