About The
Challenge

Year One Timeline

Prizes

Prize Structure

Terms And Conditions

Registration and Award Eligibility

Registration Eligibility

The DARPA Triage Challenge is open to individuals and team members of all nationalities and of all ages, with the following exceptions:

• All participants under 18 years of age require parental or guardian authorization.
• An individual, organization, or sponsor is not eligible to apply or participate if they are on the Specially Designated Nationals list.
• U.S. Government organizations and FFRDCs may participate in the DARPA Triage Challenge but are not eligible for prizes. To the extent there is a limit on the number of participating teams, the participation by Government organizations will not prevent non-federal entities from participating in the Challenge. Government organizations that plan to participate in the DTC in any manner are encouraged to reach out to DARPA for clarification on these Terms.
• DARPA employees and support contractors, their spouses, dependents, and household members are not eligible to participate.
• Federal employees and contractors acting outside the scope of their employment should consult their ethics official and appropriate management before participating in the DARPA Triage Challenge. DARPA reserves the right to disqualify a participant whose actions are deemed to violate the spirit of the competition for any reason, including but not limited to, the violation of relevant laws or regulations in the course of participation in the Challenge.
• To be eligible to win a prize in the Challenge, an each team must have registered to participate in the Challenge in accordance with the instructions outlined herein.
• Individuals may not participate on both DARPA- and self-funded teams for the same competition.

Award Eligibility

• The DARPA Triage Challenge prizes are authorized under 10 U.S.C. § 4025, subject to the availability of appropriated funds for which the payment for prize purposes can be made. The Government reserves the right to withhold prizes to ineligible and disqualified participants. Tax treatment of prizes will be handled in accordance with U.S. Internal Revenue Service guidelines. To receive a monetary prize, participants must provide a U.S. social security or taxpayer identification number (TIN). Information on how to obtain a TIN is available on the U.S. Internal Revenue Service website at www.IRS.gov. Foreign nationals will be subject to the U.S. and local tax codes applied to prize awards.

Disqualifications

You may be disqualified from the Challenge and forfeit any prizes you may be eligible to receive if DARPA reasonably believes that you have attempted to undermine the legitimate operation of the Challenge, including:

• Providing false information about yourself during registration or concerning your eligibility;
• Breaching or refusing to comply with these Terms;
• Tampering or interfering with the administration of the Challenge or with the ability of other participants to participate in the Challenge;
• Determinations that you have failed to comply with the Challenge Guidelines and/or Rules;
• Submitting content that:
  1. violates the rights of a third party; or
  2. is lewd, obscene, pornographic, racist, sexist, or otherwise inappropriate to the Challenge; or
  3. violates any applicable law; or
  4. violates the U.S. Department of Defense Social Media User Agreement at https://www.dodig.mil/Disclaimers/Social-Media-User-Agreement/ (the "Agreement"). Using discussion forums connected with the Challenge constitutes your agreement to comply with the Agreement.
• Threatening or harassing other participants or DARPA, including their employees and representatives. Harassing behavior includes: offensive, threatening, and/or hateful comments directed toward an individual or protected class (gender, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, age, race, religion, ethnicity, or veteran status), the use or display of sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, taking unwelcome photos/videos, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, unwelcome sexual attention, and developing and/or promoting any applications designed to encourage any of these behaviors.
• The Government reserves the right to disqualify any individual or organization that brings discredit to the Government or whose actions could reasonably be expected to do so. This includes associations with an organization that might bring discredit to the Government.

Ownership, Rights in Your Submissions, Sharing.

• Ownership: Self-funded teams retain all data rights to their submissions. For DARPA-funded teams, DARPA requires Government Purpose Rights.
• DARPA will not disclose the technical briefs or code bases submitted by participants outside the Government except where this information is handled by DARPA support contractors for administrative purposes and/or to assist with technical evaluation. All DARPA support contractors performing this role are bound by nondisclosure agreements.
• Sharing Your Information: Government-funded and self-funded teams may be featured on the DARPA Triage Challenge website. We will not disclose your contact information if you do not wish to share it with the public. Photos and text descriptions of Challenge events may be posted on the DARPA Triage Challenge and other DARPA-affiliated social media sites

Organizational Conflicts of Interest

DARPA is committed to ensuring fairness to all competitor teams. To avoid organizational conflicts of interest (OCI)¹ or the appearance of OCI, all DARPA Triage Challenge competitor teams with access to relevant data collected for the DTC track(s) they are competing in, must submit an OCI mitigation plan². DARPA will review all OCI mitigation plans. DARPA has sole discretion to determine whether an OCI mitigation plan is sufficient to avoid, neutralize, or mitigate an OCI. DARPA may disqualify competitors with an OCI.

An “OCI” means that because of other activities or relationships with other persons, a person is unable or potentially unable to render impartial assistance or advice to the Government, or the person’s objectivity in performing the contract work is or might be otherwise impaired, or a person has an unfair competitive advantage. The three types of OCIs are biased ground rules, unequal access to information, and impaired objectivity.

In the case of an OCI or the appearance of an OCI, an OCI mitigation plan must be submitted to demonstrate (1) measures to firewall individuals in the organization(s) in questions; and (2) measures to firewall DTC data from the individuals who would participate in the DTC competitions. DARPA will evaluate the adequacy of these measures to determine if the proposed measures sufficiently avoid, neutralize, or mitigate the OCI. An OCI mitigation plan that does not avoid, neutralize, or mitigate an OCI may result in disqualification from the competition. DARPA has sole discretion to disqualify any competitors.

Additional Information

Questions regarding rules should be sent to triageChallenge@darpa.mil

DARPA may modify the rules in writing at any time and for any reason, including the accommodation of a promising technical approach that would have been excluded by the rules.

DARPA unilaterally reserves the right to cancel or modify the Challenge at its sole discretion. All participants in the competitions of this Challenge shall sign, as part of the registration process, the Event Participation Agreements.