Open Finland Challenge is a competition for digital innovations promoting open society. It is the new improved Finnish open data and open knowledge innovation competition. Open for all, the purpose of the competition is to produce new, innovative applications, ideas or concepts which make use of open data and/or in other ways boost the development of open society. The competition has been arranged from 2009 under the name Apps4Finland and within the last few years there has also been regional competitions around Finland. Throughout the years hundreds of mobile apps, data visualizations and other concepts have been established, part of which are still in active use. This year, the new competition name, Open Finland Challenge, is launched.

Also this year regional competitions will be arranged. Organized by Lounaispaikka, in the Southwest Finland regional competition the theme for 2015 is mobility. The aim is to find new solutions in traffic, parking, traffic safety, mobility & accessibility, commuting, leisure activities etc. The competition entries should include an element of openness, meaning that they can make use of open data, open interfaces, be licensed with open source licenses or otherwise be strongly linked with openness. The entries in the regional competition take automatically part also in the national competition, which will end in November. The competition will end in November 2015. The total sum of prizes is at the moment already over 10 000 euros!
Deadline for submissions is 9th November 2015. 

2015 Challenge categories and prizes

There are four main challenge categories in our regional challenge. Each category may be composed of one or several challenges and participants can also develop new innovative ideas. In addition to the main prize in each category participants can win special challenge prizes set up by the sponsors.

1. New mobility solutions 1 000€

Special challenge: Parking 2 000€
sponsor: Turku University of Applied Sciences
contact person: olli.ojala@turkuamk.fi

Special challenge: Using open public transport data 2*500€
sponsor: Turku Region Public Traffic
contact person: jari.paasikivi@turku.fi

Traffic safety
contact person:tapio.heiskanen@liikenneturva.fi

2. Tourism and leisure activities 1 000€

Special challenge: Boost the usage of Turku’s outdoor paths 750€
sponsor: Turku, Sports Services Centre
contact person: kristina.karppi@turku.fi

Crowdsourcing of tourism data
contact person: lasse.nurmi@varsinais-suomi.fi

3. Sustainability and accessibility 1 000€

Special challenge: Sustainable commuting 500€
sponsor: Valonia
contact person: paula.vaisanen@valonia.fi

Sustainable mobility on water 2 500 €
sponsor: Protection Fund for the Archipelago Sea
contact person: jaana.kerttula@centrumbalticum.fi

Accessibility
contact person: Turku Region’s Accessibility Representative, jaana.solasvuo@turku.fi

4. Open ideas 1 000€

We will collect some additional ideas to support the creative work under this category. If you have great ideas related to mobility that don’t fit to other competition categories, this category is for you. Anyone can give their suggestions for additional themes!

Rules of the competition

Participation, schedule and competition entries:

1. The competition is organized between 3.6.2015 and 9.11.2015. The winners will be announced in the national competition gala in December.
2. Anyone can participate in the competition. There are no restrictions based on age, place or nationality. You can participate alone or as a part of a team. Employees of the Regional Council of Southwest Finland are prohibited to participate in the competition.
3. The competition entries must fulfill at least one of the following preconditions of openness:
   1. It uses open data, knowledge or an data interface which is either Finnish or is relevant from the perspective of Finland.
   2. The entry is published online (e.g. GitHub) as open source or with an open license.
   3. It promotes open governance or develops public services, for example by lowering the workload of citizens or the government or by enabling new or improved public services.
4. Is is possible to enter to any other similar competition with the competition entry, but you can only participate once to the Open Southwest Finland Challenge with the same competition entry. Competition entries, that have been created for the previous competitions that apply the Apps4Finland/Open Finland Challenge -concept, can be seen as new competition entries in the Open Southwest Finland Challenge if the competition entry in question has been updated or improved sufficiently. In these cases the participants must inform the organizers that they have participated in other competition with the entry before (which year did they participate, and a link to the prior entry) and clearly define the differences to the prior entry.
5. Each individual participant or team can participate in the competition with more than one entry.
6. The rights to the competition entries remain with the creators of the entry.
7. A jury formed from members of Lounaispaikka/Regional Council of Southwest Finland and the organizing partners will decide on which entries will be rewarded. The composition of the jury will be published later.
8. All the competition entries will also automatically enter into the national Open Finland Challenge if the creators of an entry will not separately inform the organizers of the Open Southwest Finland Challenge not to do so.
9. The competition prizes are taxable earnings. The receiver of the prize is responsible for the taxation. The amount of the prize must be reported with a pre-completed tax return.
10. You will have to define one or more challenge categories that you wish to participate in with the competition entry. The jury can, if needed, move or place the entries to other categories, if they are seen to fit them better.
11. More Challenge categories can be added by the organizers later, for examples if a new challenge partner is found. The challenge categories or individual challenges may have certain restrictions or special characteristics that define what kind of competition entries are acceptable.
12. The competition entries must be in some way located in South-Western Finland (Southwest Finland / Satakunta) or relate to mobility from any perspective in South-Western Finland.

Publishing the competition entries:

1. Applications for mobile devices have to be open for download for the defined platforms by the closing date of the competition.
2. If the application is not free, the competitor must offer a sufficient amount of free licences for the jury or compensate the cost of the licenses of the applications that were used for evaluation. The competitor and the organizer will agree on these procedures case-specifically.
3. The competition entry must be open for usage and download during the competition and two months after the closing date.
4. The competition entry can be freely added to and updated on the web pages before the closing date. Competition entries that are published early will benefit from the support from the peers, comments from the public and publicity during the competition.
5. Competition entries are open for everyone to see.

Dont’ hesitate to ask if you have any questions related to the competition, challenges, datasets, prizes etc!

Contacts:

regional competition coordinator Kaisa Savola, Lounaispaikka
kaisa.savola@varsinais-suomi.fi
+358 40 770 0262