Rules

Thank you for your interest in the Breakthrough Junior Challenge. Please know that by participating, you are eligible for a post-secondary scholarship and other forms of recognition or reward. So, it is important to define the rules of your participation. The rules governing the Breakthrough Junior Challenge ("RULES") are stated here as an extension of the Terms & Conditions ("Terms") and the Privacy Policy for use of this Website. The full Terms and Privacy Policy are available for your review by accessing them at the footer of each Website page. The RULES constitute "Competition Terms and Conditions" under Clause 2.3 of the Terms. Capitalized words (used but not defined in the RULES) have the meanings given to them in the Terms.

Please read the RULES, Terms, and Privacy Policy carefully, as they describe the conditions under which you are allowed to participate. As you participate, you may periodically be asked to recognize your acceptance of these RULES, the Terms, and the Privacy Policy by clicking "accept" in various places, but by continuing any use of this Website you expressly consent to all of these RULES, the Terms, and the Privacy Policy.

  1. The Competition begins Monday, September 14, 2015, and ends when the public is notified of the Winners at the awards show in late 2015. ALL ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED BY WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015, AT 11:59 PM ET. Information on how to enter and/or to receive Prizes form part of these Competition Rules. By submitting an Entry, each registrant agrees to the Competition Terms and Rules and warrants that his or her Entry complies with all requirements set out in the Competition Terms and Rules. This is a skill-based competition and chance plays no part in the determination of any Winner.
  2. Subject to the limitations set out herein, individuals between the ages of 13-18 may participate (“You”). You must complete registration to participate. You must be at least 13 years of age at the time of registration to participate, but You cannot be older than 18 years of age by October 7, 2015, to participate. You cannot reside in nor be governed by countries that are prohibited by law, regulation (including United States or other applicable export laws and regulations), treaty or administrative act from entering into trade relations (including export of technology) with the United States of America or its citizens. CONTEST IS VOID IN IRAN, NORTH KOREA, SUDAN, SYRIA, AND WHERE PROHIBITED. Please visit http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Pages/Programs.aspx for a current list of prohibited countries.
  3. The Content created or provided by You must be Your own. You represent and warrant that Your Entry is an original work created solely by You, that You own all Intellectual Property in and to the Entry, and that no other party has any right, title, claim or interest in the Entry, except as expressly identified by You to us in writing. By submitting Your Entry, You are providing a royalty-free, perpetual, and non-exclusive license of your Entry and all associated Entry Content to Khan Academy and Breakthrough Prize Foundation, as more specifically described in the Terms & Conditions. If there are portions of the Entry that are encumbered by third-party intellectual property rights, it is Your responsibility to disclose them, and such third party content may cause Your Entry to be disqualified.
  4. Your Entry must must be submited in English.
  5. Your Entry may not contain or depict anything that is obscene, sexually explicit, profane, racist, vulgar, defamatory, unlawful or offensive, or that infringes upon or violates the rights of any person or entity.  You must at all times follow all applicable laws, rules and regulations, and must not take any actions that are illegal or dangerous while creating Your Entry.
  6. By submitting an Entry, You irrevocably grant the Competition Sponsors the unlimited right to post the Entry on the Competition Sponsors' or its designee’s Web sites and to otherwise use, reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, exhibit and otherwise exploit the Entry in any manner, without separate compensation. You represent and warrant that your Entry: (a) does not violate any applicable law, rule or regulation, and (b) does not violate any copyright, trademark, publicity right, privacy right, or any other right of any third party. You further represent and warrant that You own and are free to grant to the Competition Sponsors all rights in and to your Entry that is granted herein. Once submitted, your Entry becomes the exclusive property of the Competition Sponsors and will not be acknowledged or returned. Entries that the Khan Academy determines in its sole judgment are not reasonably pertinent to the subject matter of the Competition, which are a duplicate of a previous Entry, or which are deemed inappropriate or ineligible by Khan Academy for any reason, may be disqualified in Khan Academy's sole and absolute discretion. Any submission otherwise in violation of these Rules may also be disqualified. The Competition Sponsors will have no obligation (express or implied) to use or display any Entry and may at any time abandon the use of your Entry for any reason, or for no reason. You agree to defend, indemnify and hold the Competition Sponsors harmless from and against, any claims, liabilities, actions, damages, costs and expenses (including attorneys' fees) arising out of or in connection with the your Entry or your participation in the Competition.
  7. As a condition of being awarded the Prize (except where prohibited by law), You may be required to execute and deliver to the Competition Sponsors a signed affidavit of eligibility and acceptance of these Rules and may be required to execute or obtain certain other releases, documents and permissions as required by Competition Sponsors.
  8. Entries become the property of the Competition Sponsors and will not be returned.
  9. Except where prohibited by law, your registration into the Competition constitutes permission to use your name, hometown, likeness and Prize information, without limitation, for the Competition Sponsors' advertising and promotional purposes without further permission or compensation. You agree to sign any and all on camera release agreements provided to You by the Competition Sponsors to enable the Competition Sponsors to use Your name and likeness in connection with the Breakthrough Prize Awards 2016 for no additional compensation. As a condition of being awarded a Prize, You may be required to confirm such permission in writing and execute and deliver a written affidavit of eligibility, acceptance of these Rules, release of liability, tax forms, and other reasonable documentation.
  10. You may participate by registering, and You may not register more than one true and uniform identity; multiple registrations for a participant using multiple identities are not allowed. We reserve the right to disqualify any Entry made by a participant violating this limitation, regardless of whether all of the respective parties had knowledge of such violation.
  11. The application requirements for Your Entry are clearly described on this website. There are three phases of assessment for each qualified Entry. They are:
    • Upon submitting Your Entry, qualified Entries will be distributed to other registrants during a Peer to Peer assessment of those Entries. You will be required to assess at least five (5) other Entries from Your Peers. If You do not complete those assessments, using the tools and process described on this Website, Your participation may be terminated. We anticipate a large number of Entries, and therefore specific provisions have been put in place to ensure fairness and to address the need to break any ties. As you consider how you will assess your Peers, please take time to read and understand the TRAIT SCORING RUBRIC that You will use. For more information on how scores from Your Peers will be calculated, please see the LEVEL PLAYING FIELD description on this Website. Based on normalized scores from each Peer review, a rank order of the Entries will be populated. The top seventy-five (75) Entries will be subjected to an Administrative Review, to ensure compliance with all of the requirements. If the top seventy-five (75) Entries qualify, they will advance to the next phase of review. Where any ties occur, those who have received an equal normalized score during the Peer to Peer review will be further ranked according to a secondary score (the grade score) provided by those same Peers. If the grade score is also equal among a sub-set of ties, then the final rank order those Entries will be calculated based on the order in which each registrant completed their Peer reviews. Therefore, it is important for each registrant to review and finalize scores for each assigned Entry as thoughtfully and efficiently as possible.  Please note that this process was designed both to narrow the number of Entries by utilizing the skills and talents of our registrants and to increase the exposure that registrants receive for their submissions. Therefore, we hope that You will approach the Peer to Peer review process as an educational experience and with good faith by providing an honest and sincere assessment of Your fellow registrants’ work.
    • Once the top 75 Finalists from the Peer to Peer review process have been identified, those Finalists will advance to an Evaluation Panel review. The Evaluation Panel consists of experts who are identified on this Website. They will utilize the same Trait Scoring Rubric to score each assigned Finalist, and each Finalist’s Entry will receive five reviews from a random assortment of Evaluation Panel members. Scores from assigned Evaluation Panel members are statistically normalized. Based on a rank order of those scores, the top twenty (20) will be designated as remaining Finalists. From those top twenty (20) remaining Finalists, a second Administrative Review will take place to select the Entries that will advance to the last round of assessment.
    • The final round of assessment consists of an undetermined number of Entries, drawn from the top twenty (20) remaining Finalists. Those Entries will be assessed by the Selection Committee, who are also identified on this Website. The Selection Committee will take into account all of the scores from the previous reviewers and any other criteria that they determine necessary to make a final recommendation of the Winners. The Khan Academy shall have final, sole and absolute discretion to select the Winners at the conclusion of the foregoing assessment processes, and the selection of the Winners shall be binding on You and all entrants.
  12. Should You be selected as a Winner, You will be required to enter into a separate agreement with Khan Academy and/or their designees, the terms of which shall be determined by Khan Academy, to receive any Prize, so long as the conditions of your success are met in compliance with all of the stated and relevant Terms. You may not submit any petitions for a division of any Prize. If You are a minor, You will be required to assist in securing parental or guardian consent during the designation of any Prize and as part of entering into any separate agreement with Khan Academy and/or their designees. The recipients of any Prize will be announced on this Website and will be required to participate in an awards ceremony, tentatively scheduled for November 8, 2015.
  13. There are specific restrictions on the Prize, including, but not limited to: 
    • Scholarship can only be used for tuition and fees at post-secondary educational institution.
    • Post-secondary educational institutions must be accredited institutions or non-U.S. equivalents.
    • Scholarships will be paid directly to the post-secondary educational institutions in which winners are enrolled.
    • Student Prize must be used within 8 years of graduation from secondary school or will be forfeited in whole or in part.
    • Scholarships are personal and are not assignable to any other student in whole or in part.
    • Any unused portions will be returned to the Competition Sponsors and winners shall have no further claim.
    • Competition Sponsors will endeavor to treat the scholarships as exempt from taxes, but any portion that is ineligible will be the responsibility of recipient.
    • Right to receive Prize is contingent on signing winner agreement and failure may result in disqualification.
    • Teacher and/or school may also be required to sign agreements with Competition Sponsors.
    • Teacher or school have the right to reject Prize.
    • Khan Academy has discretion to reserve any portion (school or teacher) if they are not properly verified or do not meet the requirements.
    • Schools must confirm eligibility to receive labs, including providing evidence of being a nonprofit or governmental institution or its international equivalent, in each case in accordance with the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended.
    •  If You are home schooled or otherwise not enrolled in a school that is eligible to receive the lab Prize, You may recommend a recipient school, but the decision whether or not to award a lab and to which school shall each be in the sole and absolute discretion of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation.
    • All awards and Prizes shall be paid in a manner and on the timeline to be determined in the discretion of the Competition Sponsors.
  14. While RAMPIT, LLC (“RAMPIT”) is providing an online platform for your participation, RAMPIT is not responsible for the payment of any Prize. Payment of the Prize is the sole responsibility of the Khan Academy and/or designees, and under the Terms each participant has agreed to look solely to the Khan Academy for the payment of any Prize. Please note that the Winner of any Prize may be subject to certain taxes. Under the Terms, Winners of any Prize will be solely responsible for paying such taxes. Neither Khan Academy, any other Competition Sponsor, nor RAMPIT and/or its affiliates will accept responsibility for paying such taxes.
  15. By submitting your Entry, you agree to release, discharge and hold harmless Khan Academy, Breakthrough Prize Foundation and each of their partners, affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising agencies, agents and their employees, officers, directors and representatives from any Loss arising out of your participation in this Competition and the acceptance and use, misuse, or possession of any Prize. Neither Khan Academy or the Breakthrough Prize Foundation assumes any responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, or delay in operation or transmission; communications line failure; theft or destruction of or unauthorized access to Competition entries or entry forms; or alteration of entries or entry forms. Neither Khan Academy or the Breakthrough Prize Foundation is responsible for any problems with or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers or providers, computer equipment, software, failure of any entry to be received on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or any website, human errors of any kind, or any combination thereof, including any injury or damage to entrants’ or any other persons’ computers related to or resulting from participation, uploading or downloading of any materials related to this Competition.
  16. THIS COMPETITION IS VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. Entrants agree that this Competition shall be subject to and governed by the laws of Tennessee and the United States of America and the forum of any dispute shall be in the courts of Davidson County, Tennessee, United States of America.  To the extent permitted by law, the right to litigate, to seek injunctive relief or to make any other recourse to judicial or any other procedure in case of disputes or claims resulting from or in connection with this Competition are hereby excluded and any entrant expressly waives any and all such rights.  Certain restrictions may apply.
  17. If for any reason the Competition is not capable of running as planned, due to infection by computer virus, bugs, worms, Trojan horses, denial of service, tampering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures or any other causes beyond the control of RAMPIT, Breakthrough Prize Foundation, and/or Khan Academy that corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity, or proper conduct of this Competition, Khan Academy reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual(s) who tamper with the process, and/or to cancel, terminate, modify, or suspend the Competition. If Khan Academy terminates the Competition, it will not retain any rights to the submitted Entries.
  18. Khan Academy, as a Competition Sponsor, reserves the right to disqualify any participant who violates these Rules, the Terms, and any standards of behavior expressed or implied in them. Any such determination shall be made in the sole and absolute discretion of Khan Academy. We look forward to receiving your most thoughtful and creative Entry.
  19. Any donor, director, officer, employee, contractor, immediate family members or those living in the same household as an employee or contractor to Khan Academy, Breakthrough Prize Foundation, members of the Evaluation Panel or Selection Committee, or RAMPIT are prohibited from entering the Competition.

Contact Information

You may contact us with any questions or comments about these Rules. Please enter “Breakthrough Junior Challenge” in the subject line of your email. You may reach us directly at:  [email protected].

The Competition Sponsors are:

Khan Academy
P.O. Box 1630
Mountain View, CA 94042   

Breakthrough Prize Foundation
c/o 901 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20001