The Startup Challenge Luxury x Wellbeing (the "Competition") is a contest to source automotive related wellbeing use cases and applications and organized by Porsche Digital GmbH (hereinafter referred to as “Porsche”).
The Competition is directed to startups and entrepreneurs who are asked to participate in the Competition by registering to and participating in the Competition in accordance with these Terms and Conditions for Participation (the "Terms"). Participation in the Competition constitutes acceptance of the Terms.
2.1 The Competition is open to both individuals and teams.
2.2 Eligible for participation are startups and teams of founders registered or located in the following regions: European Economic Area, Switzerland, UK, China and the Middle East except for:
2.2.1 Companies registered or located in Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, or Myanmar.
2.3 Employees of Porsche or companies affiliated with Porsche in the sense of §§ 15 ss. German Stock Corporation Act are also eligible for participation and, if any, are participating in the Competition in their capacity as employees.
2.4 Participation requires a valid e-mail address and completion of the registration process on the Competition website (startupchallenge.porsche.digital). All registered persons accepted by Porsche meeting the eligibility criteria set out above are considered participants of the Competition (the "Participants"). In case of team participations each member of the team needs to register as set out above.
2.5 There is no admission fee to be paid or product to be purchased by a Participant in order to participate in the Competition.
2.6 If the Participant is an employee of a corporation, government agency, or an academic institution, the Participant ensures that its participation in the Competition complies with any policies the corporation, agency, or institution the Participant is an employee of may have regarding a participation in contests of this type. If Porsche has reason to believe that any of those policies are violated by a Participant participating in the Competition, Porsche reserves the right to exclude the Participant from the Competition or receiving a prize at any time. Porsche does not assume any responsibility for any disputes arising out of or in connection with the Participant's participation in the Competition that may arise between the Participant and its employer.
3.1 The Participants shall develop use cases based on their technological innovations for the search fields presented by Porsche on the Competition website. The Competition follows a staged approach, with two stages. Each stage requires specific contributions from Participants. In each phase, startups will need to submit materials that align with the evaluation criteria for that stage.
In the initial evaluation stage (“Stage 1”), Participants are required to submit the application form as well as an extended pitch deck. Participants with the highest evaluation scores in Stage 1 will qualify to move to Stage 2 of the Competition. In the Virtual Pitch session stage (“Stage 2”), Participants who have advanced will present their solution.
3.2 A Participant's contribution to the Competition (the "Contribution") shall comprise
3.2.1 In Stage 1, the application form on the Competition website, along with a idea/pitch deck. The deck should elaborate on the proposal, outlining the innovation and its potential impact, and include images, technical details, or other material supporting the Contribution. Additionally, the pitch deck must contain company information, including details about the founding team, technology, financing round, and traction.
3.2.2 n Stage 2, Participants who have advanced will present their solution in a Virtual Pitch session, explaining the solution and participating in a Q&A session.
3.3 Contributions must be submitted in English language and comply with the requirements set out in the Terms.
3.4 A team shall submit its Contribution until the deadline communicated by Porsche at the Competition ("Submission Period"). Any Contributions submitted after expiration of the Submission Period are excluded from the Competition.
3.5 A team may withdraw its Contributions at any time until the end of the Competition. With the withdrawal of a Contribution the respective team shall be excluded from the Competition and the right of each Participant who is a member of such team to win a prize is terminated.
3.6 A Participant may only be a member of one team and, therefore, must not submit more than one team Contribution. Only one Contribution will be eligible for being awarded a prize.
4.1 Review and evaluation of all validly submitted Contributions in Stage 1 and Stage 2 will be carried out by a jury comprising three (3) to nine (9) jurors who are selected at Porsche´s sole discretion (the "Jury").
4.2 In Stage 1, all validly submitted Contributions will be objectively reviewed and evaluated by the Jury according to the following evaluation criteria, and the Contributions will be ranked accordingly
4.2.1 Criterion 1: Accuracy of application documents
4.2.2 Criterion 2: Participant Readiness
4.2.3 Criterion 3: Innovativeness
4.2.4 Criterion 4: Cutting edge technology
4.2.5 Criterion 5: Wellbeing
4.2.6 Criterion 6: Feasibility of the use case realization and technology integration in the Porsche environment
The Contributions will be ranked based on the points awarded. Up to 12 participants with the highest scores will advance to Stage 2.
4.3 In Stage 2, all Participants in the virtual pitch sessions will be objectively reviewed and evaluated by the Jury according to the following evaluation criteria, and the Contributions will be ranked accordingly:
4.3.1 Criterion 1: Contribution Pitch
4.3.2 Criterion 2: Q&A performance
4.3.3 Criterion 3: Relevance for Porsche’s latest innovation agendas and roadmaps
4.4 The Jury's decision shall be made at the Jury's sole discretion in accordance with the evaluation criteria and shall be final and binding. The fact that a Participant is an employee of Porsche or a company affiliated with Porsche in the sense of §§ 15 ss. German Stock Corporation Act must not be taken into account in the Jury's decision.
4.5. The selection of the winner is based solely on skill, performance, and the fulfilment of predetermined criteria, and not by chance.
5.1 In Stage 2, the Jury will award up to 6 winning Participants (“The Winners”) in accordance with the evaluation process set out in sec. 4 after the virtual pitch session. The prize to be awarded in the course of the Competition will be determined by Porsche in its sole discretion. Porsche will award the following prize:
5.2 The Winners will gain an exclusive opportunity to participate in an on-site use case workshop with select Porsche business units and innovation leads at Porsche in Germany in Q4 2024. Before the start of the workshop, the winners will be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. While this workshop is not a formal proof of concept (PoC), it will involve in-depth discussions that could pave the way for a PoC initiative after the Competition. During the use case workshop, the Winners will:
5.3 The winning Participants will be notified by Porsche after the Virtual Pitch session at the end of the Competition, the latest October 15th, 2024 (23:59 CET).
6.1 The prize winners’ names and countries of residence, as well as images and pictures of the prize-winning Participants and Contributions, may be announced on the Competition website and other promotional channels, including Porsche Digital channels and internal Porsche AG channels.
6.2 By participating in the Competition, the Participant grants Porsche and its affiliated companies the unconditional and irrevocable right, except where prohibited by law, to use their name, country of residence, images and pictures, and the Contribution for promotional purposes, including but not limited to Porsche Digital channels and internal Porsche AG communications.
7.1 With regard to all materials and intellectual property rights contained in an entry, a distinction is made between Background IP (refers to all intellectual property rights and materials that the entrant owned or developed outside the Challenge prior to the start of the Challenge and that were not created specifically for the Challenge) and Foreground IP (refers to all intellectual property rights and materials that the entrant created or developed specifically for the Challenge). In terms of protection, a distinction is made as follows:
7.1.1 Background IP: All intellectual property rights and materials that the Participant owned prior to the start of the Challenge or developed outside of the Challenge remain the sole property of the Participant. The Participant hereby grants to Porsche and to companies affiliated with Porsche within the meaning of §§ 15 ff. German Stock Corporation Act a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, sublicensable, transferable, worldwide, and royalty-free to use the Background IP to the extent necessary to use the Foreground IP.
7.1.2 Foreground IP: The Participant submitting a Contribution as the owner of the Foreground IP hereby grants to Porsche and to companies affiliated with Porsche within the meaning of §§ 15 ff. German Stock Corporation Act an unrestricted, exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, sublicensable, transferable, worldwide, royalty-free, and unpaid right to use the Foreground IP for all current and future, as yet unknown, types of use. This includes, in particular, the right to use, edit, import, offer for sale, sell, export, reproduce, exploit, prepare derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform, lease, and publicly display the Foreground IP. Mandatory provisions of the German Copyright Act (in particular §§ 32 (3), 32a (3), 32c (3)) remain unaffected.
7.2 As far as materials contained in a Contribution are to be qualified as databases according to § 87a German Copyright Act, Porsche shall be regarded as creator of such database in the sense of § 87a Abs. 2 German Copyright Act.
7.3 The Participant releases Porsche from the obligation to designation of authorship according to § 13 German Copyright Act. Should the exercise of the rights granted above affect Participant's moral rights, the Participant undertakes to exercise his/her rights in a careful manner, taking into account the interests of Porsche. Against this background, the Participant will exercise his/her rights only in exceptional cases.
7.4 In the event that the Participant's contribution should have overlaps or similarities with Porsche's own developments or those of companies affiliated with Porsche in the sense of §§ 15 ss. German Stock Corporation Act, Participant shall not assert any claims against Porsche, its affiliated companies or its customers.
7.5 Irrespective of section 10.1, the Participants shall inform Porsche about any application for industrial property rights as regards the Contribution.
7.6 Re-assignment for non-winning Contributions
7.6.1 With the exception of the winning Contributions, Porsche - upon the end of the Competition - automatically re-assigns any intellectual property rights assigned under Section 7.1 to the former rights holder in such Contributions.
7.6.2 Porsche will internally evaluate the non-winning Contributions regarding feasibility of implementation as well. For this reason, the Participant shall - for a period of six (6) months following the end of the Competition - not assign to any third party any intellectual property rights, i.e. any right, title or interest of whatsoever nature they may have in the Contributions and shall not grant any rights to use the Contributions to any third party. During this period the Participant commits to enter into assignment and/or license discussions with Porsche in order to enable assignment and or license grant to Porsche on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.
7.7 Specific rules for winning Contributions
7.7.1 For the sake of clarity, it is expressly stated that Section 7.6 does NOT apply to winning Contributions.
7.8 Specific rules for employees of Porsche
The IP-specific terms of the employment agreements of Participants who are employees of Porsche or companies affiliated with Porsche in the sense of §§ 15 ss. German Stock Corporation Act remain unaffected by this Section 7.
8.1 Participants' costs and expenses in connection with the participation in the Competition are to be borne by the Participants. Porsche does not compensate the Participants for any costs and expenses incurred in connection with the participation in the Competition.
8.2 No monetary compensation will be paid for any reason.
9.1 In the course of the Competition Porsche is collecting personal data of the Participants provided by the Participants, in particular as regards the registration process. Porsche collects, processes and uses (together: "processing" or "to process") such personal data for the purpose of carrying out the Competition, announcing the awarded Contributions (see sec. 6), or contact the Participant for providing information required for the proper execution of the Competition.
9.2 Personal data or Participants may be stored for up to two years after termination of the Competition.
9.3 Any Participant's rights in accordance with applicable data protection law, in particular the Participant's right of disclosure and or right to demand correction, blockage or deletion, shall remain unaffected. All inquiries relating to data protection shall be addressed to dataprotection@porsche.digital.
10.1 By submitting a Contribution, the Participant warrants that (i) the Contribution or any part thereof do not infringe any third party intellectual property right, (ii) the Participant disposes of all permissions, rights and licenses required for the submission of the Contribution in accordance with these Terms, (iii) the Contribution does not contain any harmful, malicious or deceptive code, including but not limited to any bots, back doors, Trojan horses, viruses, worms and other harmful or malicious code, files, scripts, agents or programs intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information, (iv) the Contribution does not contain third party or publicly available code which is subject to license terms that require to license the Contribution or any derivative work thereof to third parties or make the Contribution or any derivative work thereof publicly available.
10.2 To the fullest extent possible by applicable law, Porsche specifically disclaim any liability, terms, conditions, representations or warranties, express or implied, regarding the Competition or the prizes including any implied warranty of non-infringement, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose and any other implied warranties that may arise in the course of performance of the Competition.
11.1 Porsche shall be liable in accordance with statutory provisions for death or personal injury caused by its negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, gross negligence, willful default, or for any other type of loss or damage which cannot be excluded by applicable law.
11.2 Except as set out in sec. 11.1, in no event will Porsche, its affiliates, partners, subsidiaries, officers, directors, agents, employees and third parties engaged in the execution of the Competition, be liable to a Participant for any direct, special, incidental, exemplary, punitive or consequential damages (including loss of use, data, business or profits) arising out of or in connection with the participation of the Participant in the Competition, whether such liability arises from any claim based upon contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability or otherwise, and whether or not Porsche has been advised of the possibility of such loss or damage.
11.3 Except as set out in sec. 11.1 and subject to sec. 11.2, the Porsche´s cumulative aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with the Competition shall be limited to those damages that are reasonably foreseeable at the time of entering into this Agreement.
12.1 The Participant will hold all Confidential Information confidential, must not make it accessible to third parties and has to protect it from third party access and may use it only for purposes of the Competition. Confidential Information shall be all information, in particular the vehicle data, provided to a Participant in the course of the Competition and all other technical and economic information, as well as any intentions, experiences, findings, designs and documents made available to a Participant during the Competition, or which a Participant receives from Porsche or gains knowledge of by other means in connection with the Competition, irrespective of the information being Confidential Information of Porsche or of companies affiliated with Porsche in the sense of §§ 15 ss. German Stock Corporation Act.
12.2 This confidentiality obligation does not apply to information,
12.2.1 which demonstrably has already been known to the Participant prior to the Competition,
12.2.2 which the Participant receives from third parties without infringement of a confidentiality obligation,
12.2.3 which is generally known or become generally known without breach of the obligations contained in these Terms, or
12.2.4 which must be disclosed in court or by order of an authority.
12.3 If the Participant is requested to disclose Confidential Information in court or by order of an authority, the Participant is obliged to inform Porsche immediately in writing before passing on the information, so that Porsche has the opportunity to initiate legal action.
Porsche reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify, suspend or cancel the Competition without liability in the event that for reasons beyond Porsche's control cannot be performed as initially planned, e.g. because of a violation of the Terms by Participants or technical problems (outages, system corruption, cyber-attacks, etc.).
Any Participant violating these Terms or interfering the Competition in a way that adversely affects a fair and sportsmanlike competition may at Porsche´s sole discretion be excluded from the Competition and thereby lose its eligibility to win a prize.
15.1 These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany. The UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) shall not apply. The exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising out of or in connection with these terms shall be Stuttgart.
15.2 Should one or more provisions of this Agreement be or become invalid or unenforceable, this shall not affect the validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions of this Agreement.