The Social Innovation Starts with You Competition is co-sponsored by Yahoo! Maktoob and Nahdet El Mahrousa (NM). The grants will be managed by NM and made available through funding from Yahoo! Maktoob. Nahdet El Mahrousa is an Egyptian nongovernmental organization located at 18 Mahmoud Bassiouny St., Downtown, Cairo, And registered with the Ministry of Social Solidarity under registration number 5434/2003. Yahoo! Egypt Services LLC is an indirectly held subsidiary of Yahoo! Inc. and organized under the laws of Egypt, company registration number 29461, having its registered office 22nd Floor, North Tower, Nile City Towers (Yahoo! Maktoob).

As an applicant you certify that

• You are legally empowered to submit this application on behalf of the organization, group, entity, or association listed in the application.
• You acknowledge that failure to fully disclose or update required information may result in disqualification from the Competition, or if discovered subsequent to an award, may subject you to legal liability including the requirement to disgorge funds received from the Competition.
• If you become a second round finalist, you acknowledge that you will be required to submit a full business plan and additional legal, financial, and business information as requested.
• Should your application be chosen, any award of funds will be subject to execution of an Award Agreement containing the detailed terms and conditions.
• All information contained in this application is true, complete, and correct to your knowledge up to and as of the time of submission. You will update your application with any changes to any of the submitted information which occur between now and the issuance of any award.
• By submitting this application, you accept these Terms and Conditions.

Disclaimer
For an application to be valid the applicant should complete all the questions in the application form. If more than two of the mandatory questions are left blank, the application will be disregarded.
Neither Yahoo! Maktoob nor NM are responsible for any loss or damage caused as a result of errors within the Micro site pages.
Yahoo! Maktoob and NM are not endorsing any external websites and are not responsible for their content.

Privacy and Data
Personal Information that we will need We will ask applicants for their full names, email addresses, phone and mobile numbers. This information will be used solely for the purposes of this competition. Should we need to use them for any other purpose, we will obtain your approval first.

Confidentiality
Personal data requested will be kept in a secure database throughout the program. All employees of Yahoo! Maktoob and NM who have access to this information or are working on this program are obliged to respect the confidentiality of applicants’ data.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)
Ideas submitted to the Social innovation starts with you competition are evaluated by a selection committee that operates under the assumption of strict confidentiality. In this regard, the Social innovation starts with you competition does not consider the submittal of an application to be a public disclosure of the ideas and information contained therein.
NM and Yahoo! Maktoob will not automatically acquire or retain the IPR of any of the ideas for the existing/proposed social enterprise or any products developed during the incubation and/or implementation period. IPR ownership shall therefore be vested with you, your partners and/or the organization you are affiliated with, in accordance to your accepted agreement with other parties. However, if this is not applicable with the social enterprises you are proposing, the appropriate IPR placement will be acknowledged in the grant contract.
A condition of the grant contract will be the grant to Yahoo!Maktoob of a right of first refusal for the opportunity to commercialize any products developed during the incubation and/or implementation period by the existing or proposed social enterprise, should you seek to do commercialize them. This grant of rights would be for two years from the date of signing the Award Agreement.
Applicants are obliged to respect the Moral Rights of individuals who support the development and implementation of products/services affiliated with the social enterprise and requires applicants to acknowledge them by listing those individuals in the application and on further releases related products/ services affiliated with the social enterprise.

Communication

• Email is the main communication outlet used between NM – Yahoo! Maktoob and applicants, accordingly updates and results regarding the competition will be communicated via emails.
• Contact information provided by applicants will only be used for the competition communication purposes.

Budget/Payment Schedule

• The schedule of disbursements will be agreed upon once selected applicants are notified.
• Applicants must adhere to the proposed project budget. NM and Yahoo! Maktoob will be notified of any major changes that might occur during the implementation of the project. It is the responsibility of the winner to inform NM and Yahoo! Maktoob accordingly.
• NM will manage the disbursement of funds to the social entrepreneurs according to the agreed upon schedule.
• The social entrepreneur will be responsible for providing monthly financial reports to NM supporting their spending, as well as periodic progress reports and a final report.

Eligibility/automatic disqualification

• To be eligible for the grant applicants and proposed ideas MUST meet the below stated criteria. Applicants who do not meet the below stated criteria will be disqualified from the competition.
  • Applicants must be Egyptian (and residing or, if an organization, organized in Egypt)
  • Age of Applicant: must be between 21 to 35 years.
  • The ideas and individuals involved must reflect the spirit of the competition and the shared values of NM and Yahoo! Maktoob
  • The projects submitted to the Competition must fall within the scope of activities set forth in NM’s Articles of Establishment.
  • Applicants must certify in the application that the projects submitted are not predominantly (more than 60%) funded or controlled by government entities (Egyptian or foreign). Government entities for this purpose do NOT include public universities or educational institutions, or international aid agencies. Government-owned entities are not eligible for this competition.
  • Applicants must highlight in their proposals/application any relationships of applicants, officers, or directors, to government officials or entities.
  • Social enterprises supported by public education institutions and international aid organizations are eligible to apply to this competition.
  • Applicants must highlight in their proposals/application any potential conflict of interest including any relationships to directors, officers, or other employees of Nahdet el Mahrousa and/or Yahoo! Maktoob.
  • Employees and direct relatives of Nahdet El Mahrousa and Yahoo! Maktoob, and anyone involved in the administration of this competition are not eligible to apply for this competition.
  • The proposed social enterprise must have a positive developmental impact on the lives of Egyptians, as determined by the judges in their sole discretion.
  • The proposed social enterprise must have the capacity to be financially sustainable, as determined by the judges in their sole discretion.
  • The proposed social enterprise must use the Internet in some capacity to help achieve its social mission, as determined by the judges in their sole discretion.
  • Applications may be submitted in Arabic or English
  • Applicants are limited to one application per individual or group.
• Group applicants. There is no limit to the number of individuals that may comprise a group application. However, when applying as a group one individual must be the group’s designated representative and be responsible for managing the funds appropriately. NM and Yahoo!/Maktoob are not responsible for any disputes that may arise among the group members.
• Shortlisted applicants are subject to further due diligence to confirm their eligibility for the competition.
• These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with Egyptian law and the Egyptian Courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute which may arise.

Judging Process and criteria
A selection committee composed of seven judges will evaluate all applications that meet the submission criteria listed above. The members of the selection committee are neutral individuals with experience and background in social innovation and/or entrepreneurship and who have no affiliation with or preference for the submitted projects. . The selection committee will be comprised of various stakeholder groups including business and education, health, environment, etc.

• The selection committee will evaluate all received applications against the same selection criteria to ensure fair judgment.
• The committee will specifically look at two levels; the social entrepreneur (including team where applicable) and the social enterprise:
  1. The Profile of the Social Entrepreneur and Team:
  We are seeking social entrepreneurs who are agents of change in their communities.
  Candidates will be evaluated on the following:
  • Demonstrated social entrepreneurial skills
  • Demonstrated leadership skills and ability to work with and mobilize others
  • Strong passion for and appreciation of Egypt and its diversity
  • A track record of active community involvement e.g., student activities or NGO volunteer work
  • Relevant education and technical knowledge of their idea is a plus
  • Respect, abide by and demonstrate NM and Yahoo! Maktoob values: Diversity, Tolerance, Accepting the other, Transparency, Accountability, Pro-activity and Social responsibility
  • Commitment to the development of the social enterprises.
  • Diversity and inclusiveness of team
  2. The Profile of the Social Enterprise:
  The applicant’s proposed social enterprise will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
  • Root causes: Projects must address root causes of societal issues rather than addressing the symptoms. This includes the seriousness of the social problem they will address.
  • Scalability: Projects must have a clear vision on how to affect large segments of society. Project can start small but must have a clear vision of how to expand to have national impact.
  • Innovative Projects must take an innovative approach to the need they are addressing.
  • Utilize the internet: Projects must leverage the internet in some capacity to meet their mission.
  • Sustainability: Projects must consider sustainability as a priority ensuring that the project would continue and would have the necessary means and resources, human, financial and otherwise, to be able to continue and expand.
  • Mission: Project must have a clear and specific idea with a well defined mission and objectives
  • Impact: Tangible impact on target beneficiaries or clients.
  • Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E): Applicants must list quantitative and qualitative performance indicators (e.g. number of beneficiaries reached, quality of services provided, improved, etc...) How do you plan to collect the information or data? How often will the data be collected?

Additional criteria that applies to Existing Projects seeking scaling-up funding

• Applicants must demonstrate that the existing social enterprise is achieving its intended purpose.
• Applicants must demonstrate how the provision of additional funding would further the ability of the existing social enterprise to achieve sustainability and reach a larger target audience
• Applicants must provide documentation of the percentage of their social enterprise’s income that is generated by the project-related activities and how this percentage will increase as a result of the funding and support received

Awards
For the applicants who pass through the three stages of selection, the competition provides both monetary funding of at least USD 10,000 as well as technical assistance and incubation to maximize the chances of success of the selected social enterprises. Funding limit and amount will vary between the start-up and the scale-up categories.While the funding is provided by Yahoo! Maktoob and the program is managed by NM, technical assistance will be provided by both the NM Incubator for Innovative Social Enterprises as well as Yahoo! Maktoob corporate volunteers.

• We plan to award 10 grants but reserve the right to not award all of the money in the event that none of the applications (or not enough) meet our judging criteria.

Dates

• Applications can be submitted to the competition via the website: http://eg.socialinnovation.yahoo.net/ beginning Monday, June 28th. In order to quality for the competition all applications must be submitted by midnight Egyptian time on July 19th, 2010.
• Awardees will be notified by October 12th, 2010. Awardees must sign the Award Agreement by October 26th, 2010 in order to qualify for the competition. Awardees will be publicly announced by November 3rd, 2010. The timing and form of the disbursement of the grant money will be mutually agreed upon by the Awardee and NM as specified in the Award Agreement.