Smart port challenge

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Règlement du Smart Port Challenge

RULES OF PARTICIPATION

Smart Port Challenge #3

Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique S.A, a Moroccan joint-stock company with a share capital of 32,034,650,900 dirhams, headquartered at Lot 660 Hay My Rachid, Benguérir, Morocco, registered in the trade register of Benguérir under number 1037, co-organizes with PORTNET, a Moroccan joint-stock company, with a share capital of 11,326,800 dirhams, headquartered in Casablanca - Port Area - Harbor Master's Office Building, 2nd floor - Port of Casablanca, registered in the trade register of Casablanca under number 261469, and the National Ports Agency, a public institution based in Morocco with a capital of 4,062,846,045.75 MAD, headquartered at Lotissement Mandarona 300, Lot N°8 - Sidi Maarouf Casablanca, Morocco, registration number 150 8000 (IF) (hereinafter collectively referred to as the 'Partners') an innovation competition called 'Smart Port Challenge #3' (hereinafter referred to as the 'Competition') from December 15, 2023, to May 29, 2024.

This document presents the rules of participation in the Competition (hereinafter referred to as the 'Rules').

ARTICLE 1 – OBJECT OF THE COMPETITION

The aim of this Competition is to enable participants to accelerate the development of their innovative proposals and ideas (hereinafter the 'Proposal') within the framework of the Competition. This includes the support of the Partner, especially through the workshops and mentorships offered to provide guidance and direction in their reflections and the maturation of their projects.

Throughout the duration of the Competition, participants will work on their Proposals autonomously.

ARTICLE 2 – ELIGIBILITY

This Competition is open to any natural person, of Moroccan or non-Moroccan nationality, aged 18 or over, or of legal age in their jurisdiction or place of residence, who has created their company for at least three (3) months and wishes to accelerate the development of their Proposals and innovative ideas. This is subject to the condition that the company created by the Participant fulfills the legal and regulatory requirements for the creation of a company in the state or jurisdiction where the company is registered (hereinafter referred to as the 'Participant').

Employees of an existing company must ensure the free use of the Proposal presented in the context of the Competition vis-à-vis their company and present a duly signed agreement from their employer agreeing to the project of creating a company implementing the Proposal in question. A Participant can submit only one Proposal. Each project can be carried by several natural persons, but only one can be a Participant; the other natural persons constitute the team described in the Proposal file.

The Participant must be a shareholder and manager of the company. When the company is already established at the time of the Proposal submission, the Participant must own a share of the share capital and be one of its managers on the date of the Proposal file submission. By 'manager,' we mean any natural person present within the company as a corporate officer or executive.

Employees, consultants, managers, and administrators of the Partner, employees, subcontractors, managers, and administrators of other organizing entities, including jury members (defined in Article 8 below) (collectively referred to here as the 'Competition Entities'), and immediate family members (spouse, siblings, children, and parents) and those living in the same household as these individuals (whether or not related) are not eligible to participate.

ARTICLE 3 – DURATION OF THE COMPETITION

The Competition will start on December 18, 2023, and end on May 29, 2024, at 23:59 (GMT+1).

The deadline for submitting applications is January 21, 2024, at 23:59 (GMT+1).

ARTICLE 4 – REGISTRATION AND PARTICIPATION TERMS

The call for participation will be launched on the website https://www.the-nextseed.com/fr/challenges/smart-port-challenge?lang=fr from December 18, 2023, and will end on January 21, 2024, at 23:59 (GMT+1) ('Registration Period').

To participate in the Competition, the Participant must, during the Registration Period (i) visit the website https://www.the-nextseed.com/fr/challenges/smart-port-challenge?lang=fr, (ii) Create a participant account following the procedures set up by the Partner; (iii) Submit a Proposal, including a presentation of the solution and (iv) answer the online questionnaire and provide any other essential documents during the Registration Period.

Participants will bear their own expenses for participating in the Competition.

Participation in the Competition is free.

ARTICLE 5 – DECLARATION UPON REGISTRATION

By participating in this Competition, each Participant declares, guarantees, and agrees to provide written evidence, if requested, attesting that: (i) The participation, in whole or in part (the 'Participation' is deemed to include any material provided in connection with the registration), does not violate or infringe upon the rights of any third party, including intellectual and/or industrial property rights such as copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, personal or moral rights, or any other rule or regulation;

(ii) The Participation, in whole or in part, is submitted to the Competition by or with the permission of all persons (living or deceased), places and/or entities who have worked, have been engaged to work, or have contributed in any way to the participation or any part thereof, who are represented (directly or indirectly) in the participation by name, likeness, voice, image, or any other information or indicator of personality, or who otherwise have a right, title, and interest in and to the Participation or any part thereof (including but not limited to rights arising from an employment relationship for remuneration), and all these persons, places, and/or entities have given their written consent to the submission of the participation and its use in accordance with these Official Rules;

(iii) The Participant has all other rights, licenses, authorizations, and consents necessary to submit the Participation and to grant all the rights granted to the Competition Entities in these Official Rules (and in any written agreement signed by the Participant), and the exercise by the Competition Entities and/or their use of the rights granted by the Participant, in whole or in part, does not and will not give rise to any alleged or actual claims, disputes, actions, or liabilities, including but not limited to those for disputes or payment of any kind, including, without limitation, royalties, balances, attribution, credit, contributions, consultation, or any other fees, expenses, or expenses;

(iv) The Participation, in whole or in part, does not contain any malicious software, including but not limited to viruses, Trojans, worms, spyware, or any other harmful software, code, or other device;

(v) The Participation, in whole or in part, does not contain pornographic, sexually explicit (including nudity), defamatory, offensive, violent, discriminatory, cruel, abusive, highly sensitive, extremely harmful, harassing, invasive of someone else's privacy, defamatory, threatening, hateful, racially or ethnically reprehensible, denigrating, related to or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or in any other way illegal, harmful to minors in any way, deceiving or misleading the recipient about the origin of such messages or communicates information of a grossly offensive or threatening nature, impersonates another person, contains software viruses, or any other computer code, files, or programs designed to interrupt, destroy, or limit the functionality of any computer resource, threatens the unity, integrity, defense, security, or sovereignty of a jurisdiction, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order, and/or illegal content or technology or any other prohibited export content, obscene or threatening content, which prevents any investigation into any offense and which is not offensive according to reasonable standards of taste and decency;

(vi) The Participation, in whole or in part, does not contain information considered confidential by the Participant, his employer, or any other third party.

To be eligible for this Competition, the submitted Participation, in whole or in part (and its Participant), must comply with all other conditions stated in these Official Rules (which may be amended or modified at any time by the Partner without notice, at the sole discretion of the Partner, and the revised version will be published on the website https://www.the-nextseed.com/fr/challenges/smart-port-challenge?lang=fr

ARTICLE 6 – SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Participations will only be accepted from an eligible Participant who is fully entitled to do so, either in their own name or on behalf of their company. Participants must appoint a person for the notification and acceptance of prizes, if any. No more than one (1) prize will be awarded per Participant. By submitting an entry on behalf of a company, the Participant agrees that he or she has been invited to do so on behalf of the company and that he or she is the authorized representative of the company, and any prize will be awarded to the representative of the company who will be solely responsible for the disbursement of the prize.

Participation in the Competition and, consequently, the awarding of prizes to the winners is reserved for companies:

Registered in the trade register of the country in which their registered office is located;

Benefiting from valid professional liability insurance;

Able to provide a registration certificate of less than three (3) months;

Certifying that they comply with the social and tax legislation to which they are subject.

The Participant has and retains all intellectual and property rights in and to the Participation that he had at the time of submission to this Competition. By registering, each Participant expressly acknowledges and agrees that his Participation may be promoted by the Partner on its website and/or in various media (including through paper and digital media) at the discretion of the Partner.

ARTICLE 7 – INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

In any case, the Proposal and all intellectual or industrial property rights related thereto remain the exclusive property of the Participants.

Participants guarantee that they have evidence allowing the determination of the priority of a creation and thus have certain knowledge of the date of its invention or idea. If this is not the case, the Partner cannot take the Proposal into account and may exclude it from the challenge without any justification, even in the case of a simple doubt about its integrity and authenticity.

Participants indemnify the Partner against any action, claim, demand, or opposition by any person invoking a right of intellectual or industrial property or an act of unfair competition and/or parasitism, concerning the Proposal.

ARTICLE 8 – PROPOSAL SELECTION CRITERIA & JURY SOVEREIGNTY:

8.1 The Proposal must focus on one of the challenge categories, namely:

Sustainability and environment;
Port performance;
Port security.

8.2 The Proposal can be submitted in French or English.

8.3 The Proposal must meet, at a minimum, the following criteria (non-exhaustive):

The Proposal is original, created by the Participants, owned by them, and does not constitute borrowing, counterfeiting, or plagiarism, and does not infringe on the rights of third parties, whatever they may be (including copyright, moral rights, intellectual or industrial property rights, patents, etc.);
The Proposal complies with laws, market best practices, applicable ordinances, and regulations;
The innovative nature of the Proposal, its technical feasibility, and its economic character.

8.4 The Partner cannot guarantee the review of all Proposals submitted in response to the Competition and has no obligation to publish or use any Proposal. The Partner reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to delete a Proposal that constitutes, in particular, an infringement of third-party rights or a violation of laws or regulations.

8.5 The selection criteria used by the juries are applied uniformly to all Participants and constitute the analysis grid for the Proposals by the juries, who exercise their judgment independently and sovereignly.

8.6 The Partner is in no way obligated to adopt, select, or use any Proposal, and Participants cannot raise any claims in this regard. In the event the Partner wishes to adopt/use a selected Proposal, a separate written agreement may be concluded with the Participant holding the selected Proposal to define the conditions of use by the Partner of said Proposal.

8.7 The Partner reserves the right to reject a participation request at any time if the profile of the Participant/team does not comply with the Competition standards.

8.8 The same registration request cannot be entered into this Competition more than once or by more than one Participant, and in such a case, all Participants and registrations may be disqualified.

8.9 The Competition Entities assume no responsibility for lost, late, incomplete, inaccurate, stolen, misdirected, or unreadable entries, nor for any hardware or software malfunction, telephone, cable network, electronic equipment, or hardware or software failure, internet access, connections, or availability, or scrambled, corrupted, or unclear transmissions, the public telecommunications network operator, the service provider, the Internet service provider (ISP), websites, user network accessibility or availability, traffic congestion, or unauthorized human intervention or any technical error. Nor do they assume any responsibility for unauthorized human intervention, human error, or incorrect or inaccurate capture of an entry or other information, or for failure to capture such information.

ARTICLE 9 – SELECTION PROCESS:

Proposals, once submitted by Participants on the site, will be selected by a committee whose composition will be determined exclusively by the Partner. The committee will ensure that Participants, as well as Proposals, meet the aforementioned Competition eligibility conditions. Selected Participants will be notified by email no later than February 11, 2024, following a final selection boot camp.

Pre-selected Participants must present their in-depth Proposals and participate in a final selection boot camp scheduled for February 2024. Mentors designated by the Partner will be present to assist and guide the Participants, and a jury designated by the Partner will select the Participants who will proceed to the next stage.

Once selected by the aforementioned jury, the three (3) Participants selected at the end of the Bootcamp must develop a Proof of Concept ("POC") with industry experts designated by the Partner. These participants will win the following prizes: deployment of a paid POC/Pilot at Portnet/participation in a large-scale technology exhibition organized in Morocco.

ARTICLE 10 – PRIZE ALLOCATION:

Prizes will be sent by the Partners to the winners within a maximum period of 4 (four) months to the address provided by the winners.

If a winner's address is unusable (illegible, incomplete, or incorrect), they will lose the benefit of their prize.

Moreover, the Partner cannot be held responsible for any prize misrouting, loss during shipment, or the inability to contact the winner.

ARTICLE 11 – CONFIDENTIALITY:

All information, documents, and data exchanged by the Partner with the Participants in any form and on any medium in the context of the Competition must be considered confidential information ("Confidential Information"). Confidential Information remains the property of the Partner.

Participants undertake to:

Not disclose Confidential Information to third parties.
Not use Confidential Information, directly or indirectly, for any purpose and under any circumstances, on their behalf or on behalf of any third party, or allow its use for any other purpose than submitting their proposal in the context of this challenge.
Not disclose Confidential Information to a third party and take all necessary measures, legal or otherwise, to prevent disclosure of information in any form.
Implement, to ensure the security of the Confidential Information communicated to them, measures and procedures at least equivalent to those it imposes to protect its own confidential information.

Participants undertake, during the duration of the Competition and for a period of two (2) years after the end of the Competition, not to use Confidential Information for purposes other than participating in the Competition under the conditions of the Regulations.

Participants undertake to promptly and in writing notify the Partner of any use, disclosure, or loss of Confidential Information of which they become aware. The notification will indicate the measures taken by the Participant to remedy this disclosure or loss.

ARTICLE 12 - GENERAL:

12.1 Participation in this Competition is subject to these Regulations. Participants agree to comply with and be bound by these official Regulations and the decisions of the Partner, which are final and binding in all respects, as well as the privacy statement mentioned above. These official Regulations may be amended at any time during the Competition by the Partner and at its sole discretion, and the Partner will publish the amended Regulations on the site https://www.the-nextseed.com/fr/challenges/smart-port-challenge?lang=fr and send a copy of these amended Regulations by email to the email address provided by the Participant. The participant has the right to withdraw their participation if they do not accept these amended Regulations.

12.2 By continuing their participation, the Participant accepts the amended Regulations without any objection. Failure to return within the prescribed time or failure to complete the discharge documents correctly (as described herein), or if a prize notification or any prize is returned as undeliverable, or if the winner is ineligible or does not comply with these official Regulations, will result in the cancellation of the prize, and another winner may be selected, in accordance with the provisions of Article 9 above. The Partner reserves the right to denounce and take legal action to the extent permitted by law against any Participant or winner who, on reasonable suspicion by the Partner, alters the Partner's website, the registration process, violates these official Regulations, or acts in an unfair or disruptive manner.

12.3 The Partner makes no representation and offers no warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding any prize or participation in the Competition.

12.4 By participating and/or accepting a prize, Participants and/or winners hereby consent, to the extent permitted by law, to the use by the Partner (and its authorized third parties) of the Participant's name, company name, image, likeness, voice, hometown, and/or biographical information, the content included in the

ARTICLE 13 - LIABILITY

13.1 The Partner's liability for participation in the Contest is limited to damages directly caused by a breach attributable to them.

13.2 No provision herein shall be construed as, or deemed to be, a limitation or exclusion of the Participant's liability:

in the event of gross negligence or willful misconduct,
in case of death or bodily injury caused by their fault,
resulting from claims for which the Participant provides guarantees concerning their Proposal.

13.3 The Partner's liability cannot be incurred in the event of a breakdown or malfunction of the telecommunication network used, which would notably prevent the identification or access of the Participant to the site the-nextseed.com or any other website essential for participating in the Contest.

13.4 Participants' participation in the Contest implies knowledge and acceptance of the characteristics, limitations, and risks of the internet network and related technologies, particularly with regard to performance, response time, software security, and computer hardware in the face of various potential attacks such as viruses, and the loss or misappropriation of data. Consequently, the Partner cannot be held responsible for damages caused to the Participant due to these accepted characteristics, limitations, and risks.

13.5 The Partner shall not be held liable in the event of a total or partial modification, suspension, interruption, postponement, or cancellation of the Contest for reasons beyond its control but commits to informing the Participants as soon as possible.

13.6 The Partner shall not be held responsible for the consequences of a Participant's disqualification; the Partner is free, sovereign, and discretionary in the selection of Participants throughout the Contest.

13.7 The Entities of the Contest shall not be held responsible for damages caused to the computers or equipment or the web development technology of the Participants or to the computers or web development technology of any other person or entity in connection with or resulting from participation in this Contest or the downloading of material or the use of websites. Any use of contest clubs or lotteries (or similar methods), robotic, automatic participation methods, macros, programming systems, or similar methods will cancel all entries made by these methods and disqualify any Participant using such methods. If, for any reason, the Contest cannot proceed as planned due to, but not limited to, infection by a computer virus, worms, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures, or any other cause that the Partner deems, in its sole discretion, could corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of the Contest, the Partner reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to cancel, terminate, modify, or continue the Contest and select the winner from entries received before such action or as may be deemed fair and equitable by the Partner, including if unforeseen events make the Contest impossible or impracticable. The Entities of the Contest shall not be held responsible to the winner or any other person for the non-performance of the Contest or the non-provision of a prize or any part thereof due to any action, regulation, order, or demand from any government or quasi-governmental entity (whether the action, regulation, order, or demand is valid or not), equipment failure, acts of terrorism, earthquake, war, fire, flood, explosion, unusually violent weather, hurricane, embargo, labor dispute or strike (legal or illegal), shortage of labor or materials, interruption of transportation of any kind, slowdown of work, civil disturbances, insurrection, riot, or any similar or other event beyond their reasonable control.

13.8 In no event shall the Entities of the Contest, their parents, affiliated companies, subsidiaries and related companies, their advertising or promotion agencies, and/or all of their respective officers, directors, independent contractors, representatives, and agents be liable for any damage or loss of any kind whatsoever (except for liability in the event of death, bodily injury, willful misconduct, and gross negligence in the jurisdictions where such liability cannot be excluded), including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages resulting from participation in the Contest, activities related to the Contest/Prize, access, and use of any participating website, or the downloading and/or printing of material or downloading of software from the websites. Without limiting the foregoing, everything on the sites is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. Some jurisdictions may not allow limitations or exclusions of liability for incidental or consequential damages or exclusion of implied warranties.

ARTICLE 14 - INDEPENDENCE

Registration and participation in the Contest, in no way, create a subordinate relationship between the Partner and the Participants.

ARTICLE 15 - CONSULTATION OF THE REGULATIONS

This Regulation can be freely consulted at https://www.the-nextseed.com/fr/challenges/smart-port-challenge?lang=fr and is supplemented by the general conditions of the platform accessible at https://www.the-nextseed.com/fr/terms.

Participation in the Contest constitutes pure and simple acceptance of the regulation and full compliance with it.

The Partner reserves the right to disqualify, without delay or compensation, any Participant who does not meet this obligation.

ARTICLE 16 - APPLICABLE LAW AND DISPUTE RESOLUTION

The regulation is governed by Moroccan law.

The Partner and Participants will strive to settle any dispute regarding the execution or interpretation of the regulation amicably.

Any dispute that cannot be resolved between the parties and causes of action arising out of or related to this Contest will be resolved individually, without resort to any form of collective action, exclusively before a court with jurisdiction in Morocco.