Thales

Student
Innovation
Championship
2018
General Rules and Guidelines
Table of Contents
Welcome Note .............................................................................................................................................. 3
Overview ....................................................................................................................................................... 3
The Process ................................................................................................................................................... 3
Timeline..................................................................................................................................................... 3
Schools and Teams.................................................................................................................................... 4
School/Team Registration Steps ............................................................................................................... 4
The Case Study .............................................................................................................................................. 4
Presentations ................................................................................................................................................ 4
Preliminary Round ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Procedure.................................................................................................................................................. 5
Judges........................................................................................................................................................ 5
Final Round ................................................................................................................................................... 5
Procedure.................................................................................................................................................. 5
Judges........................................................................................................................................................ 6
Prizes ............................................................................................................................................................. 6
Rules to Ensure Fair Competition and Avoid Conflicts of Interest................................................................ 6
Terms and Conditions ................................................................................................................................... 7
Welcome Note
Hello, and welcome to the 2018 Thales Innovation Championship (the “Competition”) The Competition
is intended to give students exposure to problems that businesses face every day and to encourage
them to come up with innovative ways of solving them. It intends to encourage healthy Competition,
professionalism and interaction between themselves and with the industry professionals within Artificial
Intelligence.

Thales Canada Inc. wishes the best of luck to all participants!

Overview
This Competition is open to all 3rd or 4th year undergraduate and graduate students.

The General Rules and Guidelines are not all encompassing and may not cover unexpected situations
that may arise. Issues and disputes that are outside of these rules and guidelines will be resolved in the
spirit of the Competition, to the discretion of the organizers. Competition is based on a system of honor
whereby we expect participants to use their common sense in making this a fair Competition. Strict
adherence to the rules is therefore also required.

All final case submissions produced during the Case Competition are the rightful property of their
creators.

The official language of the Competition is English. Therefore all communication and documents will be
in that language.

The Process

Timeline
1. Registration Open: School and team registration opens in September 1, 2018 through the
website (https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/thales-student-innovation-championship).
2. Team Registration Deadline: The teams and universities must register by September 23, 2018.
Teams who wish to register after the deadline explicitly waive their rights to 3 calendar weeks of
preparation for their proposal/submission.
3. The teams must consist of THREE (3) students
4. Case Study release (September 24, 2018): At this point, teams have FOUR (4) CALENDAR WEEKS
to prepare their proposals for the preliminary round submitted by October 18, 2018 (11:59 PM
EST).
5. The judges will assess the propositions from October 19 2018 to October 24 2018, which is the
day that the preliminary round will conclude.
6. Final Event (November 2): The nine (9) finalists will be invited to participate in a final event at
CortAIx on November 2. All proposals will be reviewed by a panel of subject-matter experts,
 using agreed upon judging criteria. Flight, transportation, food and hotel will be paid for by
participants if they require it.

Schools and Teams

- Registration to participate in the Innovation Championship is open to all Colleges and
Universities with an undergraduate and/or graduate degree program within Engineering.
- The teams wishing to get a case study from the previous year feel free to contact us at
student.championship@thalesgroup.com
- There must be a faculty-level coach in charge of every team.
- All teams must consist of three (3) students (no more or less). Every team member must be
formally and currently enrolled in the educational institution at the time of the case study
release.
- Students on each team MUST BE undergraduates in their 3rd and 4th year or graduate students.
- The final event will be held on one (1) day, with the first place team given the opportunity to
present at the Thales AI Summit held the next day.
- The nine (9) teams invited to the final round are invited to watch all presentations after their
own, but will not be able to watch those in time slots before them.
- Thales Canada Inc. encourages diversity in all forms.

School/Team Registration Steps

- One (1) faculty member can act as a coach for multiple teams.
- The three (3) students comprising the team should register as a team with their respective
information and verification by September 23, 2018.
- Teams who wish to register after the deadline explicitly waive their rights to 4 calendar weeks
of preparation for their proposal/submission.

The Case Study

- The case will be created by a subject matter expert, and will be unpublished and untested.
- It will be a query that a subject matter expert is interested in, and would like to see new
perspectives in.
- The case will be released and sent by email to each registered team.

Presentations
- For the preliminary round, each team will make a proposal in the form of a PowerPoint
presentation.
- The nine (9) team finalists will also have to present a proof of concept during their proposal in
addition to their PowerPoint presentation.
- All teams must certify, on the honour code of their school that the final submission is their
original work. We expect students to participate in the spirit of fair-play and honesty.
- Student teams may only submit one (1) final response for the case.
 - The finalists’ deliverable must be presented in English. American or British English is acceptable
in front of the judges.
- There are no formatting requirements for the power point presentation; presentations that are
submitted should be presentable within a 15-minute timeframe. Teams may submit as many
slides as they want. Each slide deck should start with a title slide that must include the title of
the Competition (Thales Student Innovation Championship 2018), proposal title, and date.
- Please do not include your school name anywhere on your deliverable to ensure bias free
judging throughout the Competition.
- All references should be in standard academic format.
- All non-original content must reference its creator. Presentations without citations will not be
considered valid.
- Students may not use code generating software (i.e. Jenkins) if they are going to write a
program.
- Should students write code—they must submit their code for a plagiarism check.
o Should students ‘fork’ code, they must cite the original creator of the code.
- Any presentation that does not conform to this section will not be considered.

Preliminary Round
Procedure
- A preliminary round will be conducted through an online platform wherein the registered teams
will send in their proposals with an accompanying fifteen (15) minute video presentation.
- The top nine (9) teams who score the highest under the enforced scoring system will proceed to
the final round.

Judges
- Will be identified closer to the start.
- Judges will be selected from the industry affiliated with the topic of the Competition, and from
other companies recognized as lead sponsors.
- The panel’s decision is final and without appeal.

Final Round

Procedure
- The nine (9) teams will be invited to CortAIx on November 2, 2018. Flight, food, hotel to attend
the event will be paid for and arranged by the participants should they need it.
- Each team will have fifteen (15) minutes to present their solution to the judges in the field that
the case is based on. This will be followed by ten (10) minutes of questions and answers with the
Judges’ panel. Time limits will be strictly enforced.
- The presentations must be given in English.
 - The Competition will have students’ presentations loaded and ready for them to present in the
order randomly assigned. Presentations and proof of concepts must be given to the organizers
at the time of registration during the day of finals.
- Computer and video projector will be provided by the organizers.
- Please ensure that your presentation only includes information relevant to your presentation –
school affiliation should be removed to prevent potential unfair bias. Not abiding by this rule is
grounds for disqualification.
- There is no dress code—though we recommend business casual.
- Photos will be taken during and after the event.
- The order of presentations will be randomly assigned by the Organizers prior to the
presentations.

Judges
- Will be identified closer to the start.
- Judges will be selected from the industry affiliated with the topic of the Competition and from
each of the companies recognized as lead sponsors.
- Each judge will complete a scoresheet for each presentation; the scores will be tallied, and the
winning team selected based on highest score.
- In the event of a tie, each judge will be given one vote and a thirty minute window in which to
debate their choice. There will be an odd number of judges present, and a secondary tie will not
occur.
- The panel’s decision is final and without appeal.
- Scores allocated in the preliminary round will not be carried through to the final.

Prizes
- The first place will be awarded $20,000, to be divided equally between the three members of
the team; the second place team will be awarded $10,000 to be divided equally between the
three members of the team, and the third place team will receive $5,000 to be divided equally
between the three (3) members.
- All nine (9) finalists will be invited to the Symposium hosted the day after the final
presentations.
- Additionally, it is the hope of this Competition that all students will gain an experiential
understanding of the curriculum they engage with in the classroom.

Rules to Ensure Fair Competition and Avoid Conflicts of Interest

- The Competition organizers and sponsors have enforced rules in order to avoid situations where
any particular team could have, or be perceived to have, an unfair advantage in this
Competition, or where a real or perceived conflict of interest could undermine the credibility of
the Competition.
 - The organizers have set the following rules regarding potential conflicts of interest and unfair
Competition:
o Any team member who is, or has been an employee of any Thales entity or any of the
Competition sponsors, at any time during the past two years is ineligible to participate
in the Competition. A violation of this requirement will lead to immediate
disqualification of the team in which the non-eligible member is participating:
o Faculty or other advisors supporting the teams must disclose to the organizers any
relationship they have had with the Competition organizers, judges or any sponsor of
the Competition in writing. Failure to disclose this type of relationship will result in
disqualification of the team. The organizers will review each relationship on a case-by-
case basis and determine whether the relationship constitutes as a conflict of interest or
could be perceived negatively as one. The organizers will issue in writing a decision
regarding the eligibility of a team or advisor to participate.
o All information included in a team’s submission must be referenced if it is not the
team’s original ideas.
o Judges will review all submissions ‘blindly’ (without reference to the academic
institution or the team members).

For any questions regarding procedure or eligibility, the fairness of the Competition, potential conflicts
of interest or these rules, please contact the Competition Committee at
student.championship@thalesgroup.com

Terms and Conditions

The THALES INNOVATION CHAMPIONSHIP is provided by Thales Canada Inc. 105 Moatfield Drive,
Toronto, ON, M3B 0A4, Canada. This policy is effective February 5, 2018.

Release of Liability, Indemnity

By entering THALES INNOVATION CHAMPIONSHIP, participants: (a) agree to remise, release and
discharge Thales Canada Inc., its parent and affiliated companies, any and all other companies
associated with the Competition (including prize suppliers and suppliers of materials or services related
to the Competition), and all of their respective employees, directors, officers, shareholders, agents,
representatives, successors and assigns (collectively, the “Releasees”) from any and all actions, causes
of action, suits, debts, dues, accounts, claims, damages or liability for any loss, harm, damages, costs or
expenses, including, without limitation, costs or losses related to personal injuries, death, damage to,
loss or destruction of property, and rights of publicity, personality, privacy and/or intellectual property
(each, a “Claim”) arising out of, or in any way related to, your participation in the Competition and/or
the awarding, receipt, possession, use and/or misuse of any Competition prize (or any portion thereof),
or any travel or activity that is related to the receipt or use of any Competition prize; and (b) agree to
indemnify and hold harmless each of the Releasees from and against any and all Claims arising from (i)
participant’s breach of these General Rules and Guidelines, including the breach of any representations
or warranties contained herein, (ii) participant’s involvement in the Competition, (iii) participant’s
acceptance, possession, use and/or misuse of any Competition prize (or any portion thereof), or (iv) the
use of any presentation in accordance with the rights granted in these General Rules and Guidelines.

Limitation of Liability

The Releasees are not responsible for (a) stolen, late, incomplete, illegible, inaccurate, misdirected, lost,
misrouted, scrambled, damaged, delayed, undelivered, mutilated, postage-due or garbled entries,
transmissions, email or mail; (b) lost, interrupted or unavailable network, cable, satellite, server,
Internet Service Provider, website, or other connections, including those through and/or by any website;
(c) jumbled, scrambled, delayed, or misdirected transmissions or computer hardware or software
malfunctions, failures or difficulties; (d) failures or malfunctions of phones, phone lines or telephone
systems, any error, omission, interruption, defect or delay in transmission, processing, or
communication; (e) non-delivered, misdirected, blocked, or delayed email notifications; (f) printing,
typographical or other errors appearing within these General Rules and Guidelines, in any Competition-
related advertisements or other materials; or (g) any other errors, problems or difficulties of any kind,
whether human, mechanical, electronic, network, computer, telephone, mail, typographical, printing or
otherwise relating to or in connection with a Competition, including, without limitation, errors or
difficulties which may occur in connection with the administration of a Competition, the processing of
entries, the announcement of a prize or in any Competition-related materials, or the cancellation or
postponement of any event. The Releasees are also not responsible for any incorrect or inaccurate
information, including without limitation where caused by website users, tampering, hacking, or by any
equipment or programming associated with or utilized in a Competition. The Releasees are not
responsible for injury or damage to participants’ or to any other person’s computer related to or
resulting from participation in a Competition or downloading materials from or use of any website.

Privacy

By entering a Competition, you consent to Thales Canada Inc.’s collection and use of your personal
information for purposes of administering the Competition in accordance with these General Rules and
Guidelines and selecting any Competition winners. If you are selected as a potential prize winner, you
consent to Thales Canada Inc.’s disclosure of your personal information to any Competition prize
provider(s) for purposes of prize fulfillment. You understand and agree that, should your personal
information be provided to any prize provider, your information will be subject to that prize provider’s
privacy policy and information handling standards and practices. You further acknowledge and agree
that, where you enter a Competition by means of a Third Party Service, any personal information that
you share with, or by means of, such Third Party Service may also be used by the applicable Third Party
Service in accordance with its own privacy policy.