Terms & Conditions

1. Eligibility & User Accounts

• Student Eligibility: Participation is open to enrolled students from recognized universities, engineering colleges, polytechnics, and educational institutions.
• Account Authenticity: You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete personal and academic information during registration. Creating duplicate, fake, or automated bot accounts is strictly prohibited.
• Account Confidentiality: You are solely responsible for maintaining the security and confidentiality of your account credentials and passwords.

2. Hackathons, Challenges & Submissions

• Registration Windows: All team and individual registrations must be completed prior to the declared registration deadline for each event.
• Originality of Work: All submitted code, designs, hardware prototypes, and architecture must be original work created during the designated hackathon duration, unless open-source libraries or preexisting assets are explicitly declared.
• Submission Deadlines: Project repositories, video demonstrations, and presentations must be submitted through the portal before the cutoff timer expires. Late submissions will not be evaluated.

3. Intellectual Property (IP) & Ownership

• Participant Ownership: Participants and teams retain full 100% intellectual property rights and ownership over all project code, designs, and innovations developed during hackathons.
• Platform Showcase License: By submitting a project, you grant UP HACKATHON RIVALS a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to display, reference, and highlight your project title, description, screenshots, and team members in post-event highlights, annual reports, and community showcases.

4. Code of Conduct & Anti-Cheating Policy

UP HACKATHON RIVALS fosters a safe, inclusive, competitive, and respectful learning atmosphere. We uphold zero tolerance for:

• Plagiarism: Copying preexisting projects or claiming another creator's source code without attribution.
• Harassment & Discrimination: Unwelcome conduct, hate speech, offensive comments, or intimidation targeting any participant, mentor, or judge based on gender, race, religion, or background.
• Platform Disruption: Attempting to compromise platform servers, APIs, submission systems, or voting mechanisms.

5. Judging Criteria, Prizes & Certificates

• Evaluation Finality: All evaluations, score tallies, and winner selections made by the designated judging panel and organizing committee are final and binding.
• Certificate Validity: Official certificates are digitally signed and verifiable via the platform's verification engine. Altering or forging digital certificates is a violation of law and subject to immediate institutional disciplinary action.
• Prizes & Rewards: Prize distributions, swags, and internship considerations are contingent on adherence to submission rules and identity verification.

6. Disqualification & Account Termination

UP HACKATHON RIVALS reserves the explicit right to disqualify any team, revoke submissions, invalidate certificates, or suspend user accounts found in breach of these terms, the code of conduct, or verified academic misconduct.

7. Contact & Official Inquiries

For questions, event collaboration proposals, or terms clarifications: