[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 46 (Monday, March 10, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 13370-13373]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-04399]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Office of the Secretary of Transportation
Requirements for the DOT Data Innovation Challenge
AGENCY: U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of the Secretary of
Transportation.
ACTION: Notice .
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Authority: 15 U.S.C. 3719 (America COMPETES Act).
Award Approving Official: Anthony Foxx, Secretary of
Transportation.
SUMMARY: Informed decision making, based on sound data and analysis is
a cornerstone of crafting effective transportation policies and guiding
efficient investment decisions with scarce public resources. Web-based
tools, visualizations, and mobile applications can help uncover
actionable information for making better informed decisions--both by
the public and policy makers. This challenge will focus on developing
tools to address three areas: (1) Safety, (2) Transportation Access,
and (3) Traffic Management and Congestion.
Do you have what it takes to create innovative tools to address our
Nation's transportation challenges or revolutionize the way Americans
see and understand the transportation system they use every day? The
United States Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) wants to see what
you can do!
DATES: Entries must be submitted by 5:00 p.m. on April 30, 2014
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stephanie Gidigbi, 202-366-6837,
dot.gov">stephanie.gidigbi@dot.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Subject of Challenge Competition: Your challenge is to create a
web-based tool, data visualization, mobile app, or other innovative use
of technology to address systemic challenges by accessing publicly-
available Federal and/or local DOT datasets. The application/tool will
help the public and policy makers understand
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transportation challenges in three main areas:
Safety--develop tools to address and/or identify safety
concerns and challenges
Transportation Access--develop tools to show how
transportation connects people to jobs, school, housing, and community
resources
Traffic Management and Congestion--develop tools to
understand and reduce traffic and congestion
Eligibility: The Challenge is open only to: (1) Persons who are at
least eighteen (18) years old at the time of entry who are either
citizens or legal residents of the United States; (2) teams of eligible
individuals; and (3) corporations or organizations, including nonprofit
organizations, that are incorporated in the United States (including
the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam,
and American Samoa). Individuals submitting entries on behalf of
corporations, nonprofit or groups of individuals (such as an academic
class or other team) must meet the eligibility requirements for
individual contestants. An individual may join more than one team,
corporation or nonprofit organization. Candidates may not be a Federal
entity or Federal employee acting within the scope of employment.
Employees of the U.S. Department of Transportation are not eligible.
The Challenge is subject to all applicable federal laws and
regulations. Participation constitutes Contestant's full and
unconditional agreement to these Official Rules and administrative
decisions, which are final and binding in all matters related to the
Challenge. Eligibility for a prize award is contingent upon fulfilling
all requirements set forth herein.
The following additional rules apply:
1. All decisions by the U.S. DOT are final and binding in all
matters related to the challenge. Potential winners must continue to
comply with all terms and conditions of these Official Rules and
winning is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements. The potential
winners will be notified by email, telephone, or mail after the date of
the judging. The potential winner(s) will be required to sign and
return to U.S. DOT, within ten (10) days of the date notice is sent, an
Affidavit of Eligibility and Liability/Publicity Release (except where
prohibited) in order to claim any recognition. In the event that a
potential winner of a Challenge recognition is disqualified for any
reason, U.S. DOT may award the applicable recognition to an alternate
winner. Submission Rights. Each Contestant grants to the U.S. DOT and
others acting on behalf of the U.S. DOT, a royalty-free non-exclusive
worldwide license to use, copy for use, distribute, perform publicly,
and display publicly all parts of the Submission for the purposes of
the Challenge until one year after the announcement of winners. This
license includes posting or linking to the Submission on the official
U.S. DOT Web site and making it available for use by the public.
2. Entry Conditions and Release. By entering, each Contestant
agrees to: (a) Comply with and be bound by these Official Rules and the
decisions of the U.S. DOT and/or the Challenge judges which are binding
and final in all matters relating to this Challenge; (b) release and
hold harmless the U.S. DOT and the Federal Government and its related
entities, including any other organizations responsible for sponsoring,
fulfilling, administering, advertising or promoting the Challenge, and
all of their respective past and present officers, directors,
employees, agents and representatives (collectively, the ``Released
Parties'') from and against any and all claims, expenses, and
liability, whether direct or indirect, including but not limited to
negligence and damages of any kind to persons and property, including
but not limited to invasion of privacy (under appropriation, intrusion,
public disclosure of private facts, false light in the public eye or
other legal theory), defamation, slander, libel, violation of right of
publicity, infringement of trademark, copyright or other intellectual
property rights, property damage, a third party's unauthorized use of
the Submission beyond the one-year license granted in the Submission
rights, loss of profits, or death or personal injury arising out of or
relating to a Contestant's entry, creation of an entry or submission of
an entry, participation in the Challenge, acceptance or use or misuse
of prize (including any travel or activity related thereto) and/or the
broadcast, transmission, performance, exploitation or use of entry;
and, (c) indemnify, defend and hold harmless the U.S. DOT against any
and all claims, expenses, and liabilities (including reasonable
attorney's fees) arising out of or relating to a Contestant's
participation in the Challenge and/or Contestant's acceptance, use or
misuse of a prize or recognition.
3. Publicity. Except where prohibited, participation in the
Challenge constitutes Contestant's consent to U.S. DOT's and its
agents' use of Contestant's name, likeness, photograph, voice,
opinions, and/or hometown and state for promotional purposes in any
media, worldwide, without further payment or consideration.
4. General Conditions. The U.S. DOT reserves the right to cancel,
suspend and/or modify the Challenge, or any part of it for any reason,
including if any fraud, technical failures or any other factor beyond
the U.S. DOT's reasonable control impairs the integrity or proper
functioning of the Challenge, as determined by the U.S. DOT in its sole
discretion. The U.S. DOT reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to
disqualify any individual or Contestant it finds to be tampering with
the entry process or the operation of the Challenge or to be acting in
violation of these Official Rules or any other promotion or in a
disruptive manner. Any attempt by any person to deliberately undermine
the legitimate operation of the Challenge may be in violation of
criminal and civil law, and, should such an attempt be made, the U.S.
DOT reserves the right to seek damages from any such person to the
fullest extent permitted by law. The U.S. DOT's failure to enforce any
term of these Official Rules shall not constitute a waiver of that
provision. The U.S. DOT is not responsible for, nor are they required
to count, incomplete, late, misdirected, damaged, unlawful or illicit
votes, including those secured through payment, votes achieved through
automated means or by registering more than one email account and name,
using another Contestant's email account and name, as well as those
lost for technical reasons or otherwise.
5. Limitations of Liability. The Released Parties are not
responsible for: (1) Any incorrect or inaccurate information, whether
caused by Contestants, printing errors or by any of the equipment or
programming associated with or utilized in the Challenge; (2) technical
failures of any kind, including, but not limited to malfunctions,
interruptions, or disconnections in phone lines or network hardware or
software; (3) unauthorized human intervention in any part of the entry
process or the Challenge; (4) technical or human error which may occur
in the administration of the Challenge or the processing of entries;
or, (5) any injury or damage to persons or property which may be
caused, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, from Contestant's
participation in the Challenge or receipt or use or misuse of any
prize. If for any reason a Contestant's entry is confirmed to have been
erroneously deleted, lost, or otherwise destroyed or corrupted,
Contestant's sole remedy is another entry in the Challenge. No more
than
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the stated number of prizes will be awarded.
6. Original Work, Plagiarism, and Copyright. Contestant(s) warrants
that he or she or they is/are the sole author and owner of the
Submission, and that the Submission is wholly original with the
Contestant, and that it does not infringe any copyright or any other
rights of any third party of which Contestant is aware.
7. PRIVACY. Any personal information provided to the U.S. DOT and
ChallengePost by registering or submitting through the U.S. DOT
electronic mail system is used only to communicate on matters regarding
the submission and/or the Challenge. Information is not collected for
commercial marketing. Candidates may not be a Federal entity or Federal
employee acting within the scope of employment.
At least one individual from each team may travel to Washington,
DC, to accept the award. Only the individual who makes the submission
on behalf of an organization may receive the award. The submitting
individual may designate, within 10 business days following
notification of award, another person to whom to re-direct the award.
Submission Requirements
Your submission is due by 5:00 p.m. ET, on Wednesday, April 30,
2014. Your submission must use publicly available data. You must not
provide any information that is a trade secret or confidential business
information. Federal DOT datasets are available at http://www.dot.gov/data and other Federal data can be found at http://catalog.data.gov. In
addition, some state and local data can be found at http://states.data.gov, http://counties.data.gov, or http://cities.data.gov.
You may use any other publically available data sets as well.
A submission package will consist of the following:
A full description of the application, device, product, or
visualization tool (the ``Concept'') that addresses at least one of the
three challenges outlined above for this specific challenge (Safety,
Transportation Access, Traffic Management and Congestion) with elements
outlined in the Submission Content Below (not to exceed 6000 words):
i. Description of the user or users;
ii. Explanation of the Concept's value to the user and society as a
whole;
iii. Description of the conditions under which the Concept is
useful;
iv. Description of the ways in which the Concept is innovative: how
it differs from past and current practices, technologies, tools and
applications;
v. Explanation of the process by which the application or
visualization tool would be implemented and widely adopted. Discuss any
other risks, costs or challenges in making the utilization and/or
adoption of the tools or applications widespread, and how they could be
overcome;
vi. Submissions must include a link to a working tool (via the web
with a URL or mobile app store) or a video of the tool in action; and
should illustrate or otherwise support the Concept described in the
Submission Description.
The Submission should also include a summary (not to exceed 650 words,
in 12-point Arial normal font, double-spaced, in PDF format) of the
solution submitted that discusses:
i. How it meets the judging criteria;
ii. Data sets used to develop the solution; and,
iii. Intended audience/users.
Note: Submissions that do not conform to these requirements may
be considered ineligible. This eligibility decision is at the sole
discretion of the U.S. DOT. Contestants waive the right to protest.
The U.S. DOT makes no warranties to protect proprietary information
or trade secrets if they are featured in the submission. It is
recommended that entrants consider the content of their submissions
prior to making their submittal.
Any elements of the Challenge described in the ``details'' section
of this Challenge and posted on dot.gov are wholly incorporated as part
of the rules of this contest.
The Submission must be written in English, and be no longer than
6000 words. Some or all of the submission must be sent to
dot.gov">datachallenge@dot.gov with the subject line ``Innovation Challenge.''
The Submission Summary should be included in the body of the email and
must not exceed 650 words.
Must be in PDF or Microsoft Word format
Use a font size of no less than 12 points
Have margins no smaller than 1 inch all around
Submissions may be updated by the submitter until the Challenge
Submission Period ends.
Award
Winners will have their innovation featured on the Secretary's
FastLane Blog and will receive a letter of recognition from the
Secretary. Following the announcement of the award, awardees will be
honored by Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in a special session
where awardees will present their Concept for senior officials from
across the U.S. Department of Transportation, Challenge judges, and
other members of DOT staff. Outside guests will also be invited to
attend. Furthermore, depending upon the quality of submissions and
subject to the Federal Acquisitions Regulations, the Department may
negotiate licensing for the use of intellectual property developed by
selected submission winner(s) beyond the one year royalty-free
nonexclusive worldwide license provided under Submission Rights.
Basis Upon Which the Winner Will Be Selected:
Submission Judging
Submissions will be scored in each of four criteria, as listed
below.
1. Technical and Operational Feasibility
The successful operation of the proposed application or
visualization tool will depend both upon the soundness of the
application and tool itself and its relationship to the rest of the
transportation system, and the data that is used during its
development.
How plausible is it that this Concept could be implemented? What
risks or challenges exist, and how could they be overcome?
2. Potential for Widespread Adoption
Widespread adoption of the application and/or visualization tool
will depend upon a system of interrelated decisions made by various
stakeholders in the transportation network. Stakeholders' incentives
toward action must be aligned with their capabilities for adoption to
occur. How likely is it that this application or visualization tool
would be widely adopted or go viral, if it were developed? What are the
challenges facing broad adoption, and how could they be overcome?
3. Innovation
To what degree does the tool present a novel idea or approach?
4. Social Benefit
How much would this idea benefit transportation users or society at
large? Emphasis is on improvements to transportation safety, mobility,
reliability, accessibility and/or environmental impact.
The Submissions will be judged by a qualified panel selected by the
U.S. DOT at its sole discretion. The panel will judge the entire
Submission on the judging criteria identified above in order to select
five winners. Judges reserve the right to withdraw without advance
notice.
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Additional Information:
Federal grantees may not use Federal funds to develop COMPETES Act
challenge applications.
Federal contractors may not use Federal funds from a contract to
develop COMPETES Act challenge applications or to fund efforts in
support of a COMPETES Act challenge submission.
Issued On: February 21, 2014
Anthony Foxx,
Secretary of Transportation.
[FR Doc. 2014-04399 Filed 3-7-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-9X-P