THE EARTH PRIZE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS

1. Eligibility

For eligibility rules and definitions, please read The Earth Prize Rules.

2. Participation in The Earth Prize

2.1 For Participants

• Participants acknowledge the competition’s deadlines stipulated in The Earth Prize Rules.
• Participants agree to abide by The Earth Prize Participants Code of Conduct and The Earth Prize Official Rules.
• Participants agree to submit their original work and not the work of someone other than the Participant or Participants as a team.
• All content submitted to The Earth Prize must be the work of the registered Participant(s). The Earth Prize does not accept the work of ghostwriters.
• To the fullest extent permitted by law, The Earth Foundation will not be liable for loss or damage arising out of The Earth Prize Winners’ or Runners-up’s acceptance, or enjoyment of their prize.

2.2 For Supervisors

• Supervisors acknowledge the competition’s deadlines stipulated on The Earth Prize Rules.
• Supervisors agree to abide by The Earth Prize Supervisors Code of Conduct and The Earth Prize Official Rules.
• To the fullest extent permitted by law, The Earth Foundation will not be liable for loss or damage arising out of The Earth Prize Winners’ or Runners-up’s acceptance, or enjoyment of their prize.

3. Submissions

• To participate in The Earth Prize, Participants must register on The Earth Prize online platform at www.theearthprize.com. They will then need to have their Supervisor register through the same platform and create a team on The Earth Prize Submissions portal.
• All Participant submissions MUST be made online through The Earth Prize Submissions Portal. Mail-in submissions will not be accepted.
• Submissions must be received by the deadlines stipulated on The Earth Prize Participant Submission Guidelines.
• Submissions must be received in English only.
• Submissions may only be received in the name of a team.
• False or deceptive submissions or acts may render a Participant and/or team ineligible.

4. Adjudication

• All teams that have successfully completed their Student Verification Form, Problem Definition, and Motivation Statement will automatically enter the next phase of the competition.
• All successfully submitted Fresh Ideas will be assessed by The Earth Foundation team and a carefully selected panel of external reviewers. All those submissions that reach outstanding standards, as determined by The Earth Foundation, will be recognized as The Earth Prize Scholars and then forwarded to The Earth Prize Adjudicating Panel for review.
• The Earth Prize Adjudicating Panel will select the top ten (10) teams from The Earth Prize Scholars, which will then move on to the Finalists Phase of the competition. It is in The Earth Prize Adjudicating Panel’s sole discretion to determine which Participants advance to the Finalist Phase. All selected Finalists will need to sign The Earth Prize Finalist Agreement in order to be eligible to win The Earth Prize.
• At the Finalists’ Phase, the ten (10) selected Finalists’ submissions will be reviewed and evaluated by the Adjudicating Panel after each team’s presentation. The Earth Prize Adjudicating Panel will then select The Earth Prize Winner and Runners-up from the ten (10) selected Finalist teams.
• All Finalists are subject to verification by The Earth Foundation and must meet all eligibility requirements including the execution and return of all necessary documents, or they may be disqualified. The decisions of the Adjudicating Panel will be final and binding.
• The Earth Foundation will announce The Earth Prize Winner and Runners-up in The Earth Prize Awards Ceremony.

5. Prizes

5.1 Payment of Prizes

To The Earth Prize Winner team, prize money will be paid in two parts:

• Part 1: 50% of the prize money to the team’s school or official organization, 90 days after The Earth Prize Winner has been announced, and once the school or official organization has provided The Earth Foundation with a written description (up to 1000 words) of the environmental project to which they plan to use the money. Should the Winner be an individual homeschooled student, not affiliated with any academic institution or organization, and supervised by their parent or legal guardian, the 50% of the prize that would otherwise be paid to a school must serve environmental purposes within the family’s community.
• Part 2: 50% of the prize money to each team member for acceptable educational purposes and directly to the academic institution(s) of their choice upon request with a proof of enrolment or acceptance. In the case of more than one student on a team, the prize money will be split evenly among team members.

To The Earth Prize Runner-up teams, prize money will be paid as follows:

• To each team’s school or official organization, 90 days after The Earth Prize Runners-up have been announced, and once the school or official organization has provided The Earth Foundation with a written description (up to 1000 words) of the environmental project they plan on to use the money. Should the Runner-up be an individual homeschooled student, not affiliated with any academic institution or organization and supervised by their parent or legal guardian, the prize that would otherwise be paid to a school must serve environmental purposes within the family’s community.

All prizes are stipulated in US dollars. Exchange rates and bank fees at the time of payment will apply. The Earth Foundation is not responsible for any fees charged by the recipient’s bank. Participants will also be responsible for all applicable taxes on the award money received. More detailed information will be provided in the Finalists Agreement, which Participants and Supervisors who make it to the Finalists Phase will need to sign.

6. Participants’ Intellectual Property

The creations, inventions, ideas, and any materials submitted to The Earth Prize will remain the students’ intellectual property. The Earth Foundation has no legal claim over the students’ ideas. The Earth Prize shall not be involved with the securing of trademarks, copyrights or any other legal intellectual property mechanisms on behalf of any of the Participants. Neither Supervisors nor Mentors shall appropriate the Participants’ ideas. Likewise, Supervisors and Mentors shall maintain the confidentiality of the Participant(s)’ ideas.

6.1 The Earth Prize Scholar Fresh Ideas’ Development Opportunities

The Earth Foundation may share with carefully selected individuals and organizations outside the Foundation, under strict confidentiality, Scholars’ submissions in order to help the students further develop their ideas.

6.1.1 Villars Institute/GSEM Scholars’ Fresh Idea Development Program*

In collaboration with trusted partners The Villars Institute, a number of selected Scholar Fresh Ideas will be further developed into comprehensive business plans by graduate students enrolled in the Master of Science in Responsible Management program of the Geneva School of Economics and Management at the University of Geneva (GSEM). The ideas and any other material submitted to The Earth Prize competition will remain the intellectual property of the Scholar teams’ students, and this development program is solely for the benefit of the team, the team’s idea, and its implementation.

7. Copyright

Participants and Supervisors must make sure that the content submitted to The Earth Prize is original. Submissions should not contain any materials protected by copyright, including music tracks, photos, videos, programs, and texts, that they are not allowed to use. If submissions violate The Earth Prize’s Terms & Conditions or any applicable laws, including intellectual property rights of others (copyright, trademarks, and alike), they are not allowed to submit such content. Participants will be responsible for paying all royalties, fees, and any other monies applicable to their content.
The Earth Foundation owns or is authorized to use most of the content on The Earth Prize online platforms, referred to as “The Earth Foundation Content”. This content includes, but is not limited to, text, images, audiovisual content, source code, trademarks, service marks, and trade names. The Earth Foundation Content is protected by the applicable intellectual property laws and international treaties.
Neither Participants nor Supervisors are allowed to copy, distribute, make available, disassemble, make alterations, decompile, reverse engineer, translate, adapt, rent, loan, use, lease, or attempt to grant other rights to the content to third parties, or use any manual or automated means to scrape any content available on the website without asking The Earth Foundation prior permission.

8. Media Waiver

By registering in the competition, Participants authorize The Earth Foundation’s use of their name, likeness, and if provided, picture and bio, for the purposes of promoting The Earth Prize, and agree to indemnify The Earth Foundation against any harm from the use of the Participant’s information. The Earth Foundation may use Participants’ information in publications, including online publications, audiovisual presentations, and promotional literature. Participants will not be entitled to any compensation in connection to The Earth Foundation’s use of their information.

8.1 Media Rights and Data Access

At any time, a Participant (s) can refuse to permit The Earth Foundation to collect further Personal Data in association with The Earth Prize and can request that The Earth Foundation delete from its records the Personal Data it has collected in connection with The Earth Prize. Please note that a request to delete records may lead to a withdrawal from The Earth Prize competition. A Participant(s) can contact The Earth Foundation to request access to, change, or delete his/her/their personal information by sending an email to The Earth Foundation at info@theearthprize.org. A valid request to delete personal information will be accommodated within a reasonable time. In addition to the foregoing, The Earth Foundation will exercise commercially reasonable efforts to delete personal information belonging to the Participant(s) when it is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was collected.

9. Applicable Jurisdiction

These Terms and Conditions shall be governed and interpreted in all respects by the material laws of Switzerland. For any dispute arising from the Terms and Conditions, the exclusive place of jurisdiction shall be Geneva, Switzerland.

10. Privacy

Participants may be contacted to provide additional information and have their information verified. The Earth prize reserves the right to request and require additional information from Participants in order to have their submission considered. For more information about the data privacy notice, please consult: www.theearthprize.org.

11. Limitations of Liability

If, for any reason, The Earth Prize is not capable of running as planned, including infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures or any other causes beyond the control of The Earth Foundation and its Sponsors which corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of The Earth Prize, The Earth Foundation reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any individual who tampers with the submission process and to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend The Earth Prize. The Earth Foundation assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect or delay in operation with transmission, communications, line failure, theft, destruction or unauthorized access. The Earth Foundation is not responsible for any problem or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers, equipment or software, failure of any email or submission to be received on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any website, phone lines, or any combination thereof, including any injury or damage to a Participant's computer related to or resulting from participation in this contest. CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT BY A PARTICIPANT TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY WEBSITE OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THE EARTH PRIZE IS A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS AND SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, THE EARTH FOUNDATION RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

The Earth Foundation is not responsible for any late, lost, garbled, misdirected, incomplete, or damaged submissions; any disruptions, injuries, losses or damages caused by events beyond the control of The Earth Foundation or any printing or typographical errors in any materials associated with The Earth Prize. The Earth Foundation is not in any way responsible or liable for the use of the prize money, or for any damage, loss or injury (including death) resulting from participation in The Earth Prize and/or acceptance and use of any prizes won.