The competition is open to all participants 18 years of age or older, where allowable by law, except people or organizations who are employed by a major seed company or their affiliates.
Submissions must be in MS-Word or LaTeX format using the appropriate submission template. You can download the submission template here (.zip).
The Analytics Society of INFORMS is administering the contest and will be responsible for judging the submissions and choosing the winners. Syngenta shall only have access to information necessary to assist the Analytics Society of INFORMS in the scientific evaluation.
Selected finalists will be invited to make a presentation of their submission at the 2021 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference – Orlando, date April 11-13, 2021.
Prizes awarded will be $5,000 for first place, $2,500 for second place and $1,000 for third place. In the event that submissions of sufficient quality are not submitted to justify the awarding of all three prizes, the award committee reserves the right to eliminate any or all of the prize levels.
All decisions by the award committee are final. The award will be made in US Dollars. All currency exchange costs are the responsibility of the winner.
The award may be subject to taxes depending on the winners’ country. Winners are responsible to comply with all tax requirements.
Participants agree that (a) personal information collected by the Analytics Society of INFORMS and IdeaConnection may be stored within the context of the contest for administrative purposes and that (b) participants name, location and affiliation may be displayed to the public within the context of the contest.
Participants represent and warrant that they have the right to submit their idea to the contest, that they are the sole and exclusive owner of the idea, and that the idea or submission of the idea does not violate any agreements with third parties or any applicable law in any country.
Additionally, participants agree and warrant that they will not submit an idea that infringes on any 3rd party intellectual property, trade secret or confidentiality obligation.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, each participant indemnifies and agrees to keep indemnified the Analytics Society of INFORMS, Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC and IdeaConnection Ltd., their affiliates, agents, directors, officers, employees, representatives and assigns harmless from and against any liability, claims, demands, losses, damages and costs resulting from any act, default or omission of the participant and/or a breach of any warranty set forth herein.
The Analytics Society of INFORMS and IdeaConnection shall have the right to use, modify and make available to the public the submitted idea for the purposes of judging, advertising, promotion, administration, testing and demonstration. Intellectual property rights to the contest submission, if any, will remain with the participants.
To the extent permitted by law the rules, terms and conditions for the contest are governed by the laws of Delaware.