• This competition is open for creative teams of two or more. An ideal team would consist of an artist, and an engineer or scientist with at least one being a local who can lead a major part of the development and implementation on the ground. Submissions that treat the integratation of a local community around the Mediterranean in the implementation and testing, will be more favorable.
• Teams may submit one entry to the competition. Individuals may not be on more than one team.
• Applicants must ensure upfront that they have rights to all the intellectual property related to their submissions.
• The intellectual property of the submission remains the property of the participant unless the participant accepts additional seed funding for commmercializing from affiliates or sponsors of the awards.
• Applicants must provide accurate, complete and verifiable information regarding contact and personal information.
• Submission should be presented and submitted in English.
• Submissions are due no later than March 31st, 2016. Early bird submissions are encouraged and may have higher chances of support.
• An early bird submission gives more lead time for peer/jury review and hence increases the chances for a. gauging potential interest of funding from the festival’s sponsors and affiliates; and b. possible help in matching the team with a local human resource to increase contextual relevance should that be needed.
• A submission must be an artwork which is pragmatic and constructable within reason, employs technology that can be scalable and tested and arguably pushes the boundaries of the potential for tackling a problem believed to be unsolvable.
• A Sharara Challenge Award of up to $50k will be divided equally among two selected artworks: One with the best fit for the Tunisian Sahara and one for Gaza. For either winning entry with a prototype that has not been fully fabricated nor has been in use and has not been previously published or exhibited anywhere in the world, the award will be $25k. Otherwise the award will be up to $15k. Ten percent of the award will be deducted for Jury travel expenses, editing for prospective publishing in Leonardo Journal of MIT Press and other related expenses of this competition.
• The award should cover the fabrication then installation at ShararaTech Art & Science Mediterranean Festival and later at the destination where the installation will finally reside. The award should also cover all related costs including supplies and materials, taxes, insurance, transportation and attendance at ShararaTech. In cases where awardees offer promissing solutions, more funding can be facilitated on for-profit or not-for-profit bases.
• The Award and any other potential funding for selected submissions would be provided in 2-4 installments in correlation with progress on the implementation and installation of the artwork in ShararaTech Art & Science Mediterranean Festival.
• Selected and awarded/funded submissions agree to participate with the awarded/funded artwork in ShararaTech Art & Science Mediterranean Festival without remuneration.
• The selected and awarded artwork would become the ownership of the location it so suggests a solution for after participating in the festival. The final destination and ownership of other public artworks that ShararaTech might facilitate funding for will be subject to mutual consent of the participant on one hand and the potential sponsor and ShararaTech Art & Science Mediterranean Festival on the other hand.
• The ShararaTech jury reserves the right not to choose a winner if, in the jury’s sole opinion, an insufficient number of eligible and/or qualified entries are received.
• Selected commercalizable solutions agree to reserve the right of first refusal of investing to respective potential sponsors.
• Neither ShararaTech Art & Science Mediterranean Festival nor its sponsors can be held responsible for any unauthorized use of individual entries by visitors to the website.
• After the competition is over, submissions and their contents may be used at the discretion of ShararaTech organizers unless the applicant will have requested otherwise in writing as a pre-requisite for participating in this competition.
• Unless otherwise requested in writing as a pre-requisite for participating in this competition, by entering this competition, the applicants consent to the use by ShararaTech organizers and their publishing partners of all images, text and materials that they submit for any purpose, in any media, for an unlimited period, without remuneration. ShararaTech Challenge organizers have the right to publish, display, reproduce, adapt, promote or otherwise use entries in any way they deem fit. Applicants warrant that they are legally entitled to grant these rights to organizers of ShararaTech Challenge and agree to indemnify these organizers in the event that they suffer any loss as a result of false information provided by such applicants.
• The participant warrants that no part of the submission, including all methods, processes, techniques, know-how, etc., used for the submission, or any delivery item / results that emerge from it within framework of the challenge and/or ShararaTech Art & Science Mediterranean Festival, including associated intellectual property rights, infringe rights of third parties - whether through possession, use, re-lease, transfer or otherwise.
• By entering this competition an applicant and its team members agree that if they win, they will participate in any promotional activities or material, without additional payment or permission, as ShararaTech organizers may request.
• Winners of awards will be invited to submit 2-page manuscripts related to their jury-selected submissions for potential publishing in a ShararaTech Special Section of the Journal of Leonardo of MIT Press. The acceptable layout template for such submission can be found at the following link: http://leonardo.info/transactions.html. Submitters will be requested to specify which related visual or audiovisual material to their submission can appear as supplementary material to their prospective print publication on the Leonardo website <www.leonardo.info>.
• In the event of unforeseen circumstances, ShararaTech Art & Science Mediterranean Festival organizers may alter, amend or foreclose the competition without prior notice. They reserve the right to change the terms of this competition at any time.
• Neither ShararaTech nor its affiliates, partners and sponsors are liable for any damage, loss or disappointment suffered by any applicant taking part in this competition.
• The laws of Tunisia will be applicable.