A. Eligibility Requirements I. Team members ● Each team must consist of at least one full time student, post­doctoral trainee, or recent graduate from either University of California, San Diego (UCSD) or the other Torrey Pines Mesa Research Institutions (The Salk Institute, Burnham Institute, Scripps Research Institute, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography). Alumni who have graduated from UCSD are eligible to compete up to one year after the date of their graduation. ● The Student/post­doc must be an active, contributing team member who is the founder or co­founder of the team, and, together with all other student/post doc team members, hold in the aggregate at least 20% of the ownership interest in the company which is the subject of such team’s submission in the competition. ● No university professors or outside business professionals will be allowed to participate in the presentations themselves at our final event. ● Core organizers of the Entrepreneur Challenge at UC San Diego (Entrepreneur Challenge) such as the CEO, COO, CFO, as well as any and all members intimately involved in the development of regular Entrepreneur Challenge activities, are not allowed to compete. Former CEOs, CFOs, and COOs are also barred from future competitions. II. Cash Funding ● Competitors in the competitions may not have raised an aggregate amount of over $250,000 in cash funding from any source, including, but not limited to, funds awarded in other competitions, angel investments (including from friends and family), investments from venture capital or other institutional investors, grant awards, and in each case whether including funds received in exchange for equity or any form of debt, whether convertible or non­convertible. Teams must disclose any funding already received ­ if surpassing $25,000 ­ by 18 May, 2015. ● All finalist winners need to be incorporated or must incorporate before receipt of their winnings. Receipt will require disclosure of a valid tax identification number before cash funding prizes can be awarded. Please note that winners will also receive legal services from DLA Piper, LLP. that may be used towards incorporation for this purpose. ● All funds secured through any of the competitions may only be used for working capital purposes in the represented company (e.g. to launch the business idea or expand an existing business). III. Affidavits ● The Entrepreneur Challenge reserves the right to require at any time that any competitor sign an affidavit that their team meets each of the requirements described above at any point and continuously throughout the applicable competition. In addition, any awards are subject to forfeiture and/or repayment if determined that the awardees were not in compliance. B. Confidentiality Details I. Submission Confidentiality: Judges & Participants ● Only the judges assigned to read the submission for each of the competitions, as well as the CEO, COO, and Director of Judging will have access to the submissions. ● Judges will be asked to treat all plans with complete confidentiality. We will also ask a judge to remove themselves from judging if we believe, in our sole discretion, that they have a conflict of interest. ● Entrants should feel free to mark plans as confidential and exclude any information that is considered to be truly proprietary. Judges, mentors, staff, legal counsel and any individual attending any public sessions of the competitions will not be asked or required to agree to or sign non­ disclosure, confidentiality or other similar agreements. II. Intellectual Property Issues ● All public sessions of the competition, including the final live business plan presentations will be open to the public. Any information or data discussed in the public sessions should be considered information that is likely to enter the public domain. ● Competitors should not assume any right of confidentiality to any information presented or discussed in public sessions. Please be aware that members of the media, potential competitors, and members of the financial community may attend public sessions. ● Although presenting your ideas to wide audiences is considered a benefit by the business community to aspiring entrepreneurs, exact intellectual property ­ the "secret sauce" that constitutes proprietary information ­ should not be publicly disclosed. All Participants will be notified that their ideas are subject to infringement and should be warned prior to revealing their ideas to a live audience. To that effect, you should avoid exact details of how your technology works. For more information contact ​
ucsdchallenge@gmail.com. C. Team and Idea Development I. Other Campus Collaborative Efforts ● In order to meet its mission to foster innovation at the university, the Entrepreneur Challenge has partnered with other important business entities on campus. Contestants are welcome and encouraged to interact with these other competitions and business development agencies in order to maximize their company's value, and their value to the community. By participating in the competition, competitors agree that the Entrepreneur Challenge assumes no liability, and shall have no liability or obligation whatsoever for disclosures of information provided by a competitor as part of a submission or otherwise during the course of the competitions. NOTE​
: Failure to comply with these requirements may result in disqualification at any time in the sole discretion of the Entrepreneur Challenge. The Entrepreneur Challenge holds the final say in all disputes and may at any time require that a finalist or winner of any cash or service award that failed to comply with requirements set forth above throughout the applicable competition forfeit and/or repay any such award. Guidelines and rules for any or all of the competitions are subject to change at any time within the scope of the Entrepreneur Challenge’s mission.