February 15, 2021

Description

This 2021 QHack Competition (the “Competition”) consists of TWO independently entered, judged, and awarded prizes (each an “Award”):

1. QHack QML Challenge Award
2. QHack Open Hackathon Grand Prize

Terms and conditions applicable to each Award are detailed in the section labelled “Awards” below. In addition, all awards are covered by the Competition General Rules and Regulations.

Organizer and Sponsors

The organizer of this Competition is Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc., 777 College St., Toronto ON, M5G 2C8, Canada ("Xanadu", “we”, or “us”).

The sponsor of the CERN Internship Award is CERN (Organization European pour Recherche Nucléaire), Espl. des Particules 1, 1217 Meyrin, Switzerland.

The sponsor of the AWS Credits Awards is Amazon Web Services Inc., 410 Terry Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109, United States.

Competition Period

The Competition will commence when Xanadu begins accepting Submissions (defined below for each Award) through https://challenge.qhack.ai/team. This will take place at approximately 00:01 am EST 17 February 2021. The Competition end date is specified separately for each Award below.

Awards

QHack QML Challenge Award

• Total Award(s) (aka “Power Ups”): No less than USD$250 up to a maximum of $100,000 in AWS Braket credits, dispersed to Team Captains across a maximum of 100 teams.
  • Winners are responsible for creating and administering their own AWS accounts, including all charges incurred beyond the awarded credits.
  • Recipients of AWS Credits will be required to agree to the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions, full details are provided on the AWS website https://aws.amazon.com/awscredits/
  • Recipients of AWS Credits will be required to provide a valid credit card to activate an AWS account and redeem your promotional credit code. Subject to the AWS Promotional Credit Terms and Conditions below, your credit card will not be charged for fees for eligible services until you incur fees for eligible services that exceed available promotional credit. Please be aware that some services are not eligible for promotional credit, and you will be billed for any use of these services. You can view detailed service pricing for more information.
• Description: Power Ups are rewarded based on QML Challenge rankings. $250 of credits will be awarded to each team that appears on the scoreboard at https://challenge.qhack.ai/public (“the Scoreboard”) in Position 1 up to and including Position 80, as at 6:00 PM EST on February 19. Total awards in this category will not exceed $20,000 of credits.
  • Based upon demonstrated progress on the Open Hackathon project as assessed by competition organizers as at 12:00 PM EST on February 24th, $4,000 of additional credits awarded to those top teams deemed to have best met the Progress criteria, up to 20 teams in total. Top-ranking teams will be determined at the competition organizers’ discretion, based on conformance to the progress criteria outlined below, as well as relative quality of the Submission compared to other entries. Total prizes in this category will not exceed $80,000 of credits.
  • Progress criteria: Team has opened an “Issue” on https://github.com/XanaduAI/QHack2021 which contains the following:
    • A 1-2 paragraph written description of their Open Hackathon project.
    • A hyperlink to a draft of their Open Hackathon project code.
    • A 1-2 paragraph written “Resource Estimate”, indicating how they expect to use, if awarded, the additional AWS credits to finish their Open Hackathon project.
• Rules:
  • Entrants and Submissions must conform to the General Rules and Regulations.
  • One member of the Team (Team Captain) will be required to register for the QHack QML Challenge at https://challenge.qhack.ai/register in order to submit solutions to the QHack QML Challenge problems. The Team Captain will be required to supply a valid email address upon registration. This information will be used for communication with the Team Captain for the purposes of the competition only and no other purposes.
• Judging criteria: DOMJudge, a third-party automated system to run programming contests, will grade Submissions and award pre-specified points for each successful Submission for each QHack QML Challenge problem based upon difficulty.
• Award entry period: 17 February 2021, ending 12:00:00 PM Eastern Standard Time 24, February 2021.
• Other considerations: Finalists may be profiled on Xanadu’s social media, at Xanadu’s discretion.

QHack Open Hackathon Grand Prize

• Prize(s): Up to and no more than three (3) 2021 nine (9) week summer on-line CERN internships for the winning team members, including a $1,500 CHF (≅CAD$2,000) stipend. Should the team size of the winning team be greater than three, it will be up to the team to appoint who will be the recipients of the internships.
• Description: The prize(s) up to a total of 3, constituting the “Grand Prize”, will be awarded by a committee of judges representing the competition organizer. The program associated with the internship will be delivered by CERN and the stipend will be paid by Xanadu.
• Rules:
  • Entrants and Submissions must conform to the General Rules and Regulations.
  • Submissions must be made by opening a new Issue at the GitHub repository located at https://github.com/XanaduAI/QHack2021.
  • Each team’s Submission must include a hyperlink to an explanatory presentation of the team’s QHack Open Hackathon project in a non-technical form (e.g., video, blog post, jupyter notebook, website, slideshow, etc.)
  • Submitter agrees to license the Submission under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, and all provided code under the Apache License, Version 2.0.
• Judging criteria:
  • Teams will be judged based on both their QML Challenge Scoreboard score and their Open Hackathon project.
    • Only the top teams (up to the top 20) based upon the Scoreboard score at 6:00 PM EST February 26 will have their Open Hackathon projects considered by the judging panel for the Grand Prize.
  • Entries will be judged based on three (3) criteria:
    • Scientific and/or technical ability demonstrated in the hackathon project.
    • Overall quality of presentation of the hackathon project.
    • Depth of use of the quantum computing software and hardware stack.
• Award entry period: 6:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time 22 February 2021, ending 6:00:00 PM Eastern Standard Time 26 February 2021.
• Other considerations: Top Submissions as determined by the competition organizers may be invited to include their project on the PennyLane Demos page (https://pennylane.ai/qml/demonstrations.html) and/or advertised via blog posts hosted on platforms managed by the award sponsors. Winner(s) may also be profiled on Xanadu’s social media platforms.

General Rules and Regulations

By registering for the QHack Competition, you agree to abide by the following Terms and Conditions. Competition entry void in Quebec.

1. Except where prohibited by applicable local law, residents of any country who have reached the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence at the time of entry may enter, except employees of Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc. and its advertising and promotional agencies, employees of any of the competition’s sponsors and the immediate family of such employees and persons with whom such employees are domiciled. “Immediate family” is defined as parents, siblings, children or spouse. THE COMPETITION IS VOID WHEREVER BY, WITHOUT LIMITATION, FILING OR REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS, OR IS OTHERWISE PROHIBITED OR RESTRICTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.
2. No purchase necessary to enter. Limit of one entry per person per competition (regardless of method of entry). Competitions open 17 February 2021 and close on 26th February 2021 (the “Entry Period”). Valid entries for the QML Challenge may only be submitted via https://challenge.qhack.ai/team. Valid entries for the Open Hackathon may only be submitted via https://github.com/XanaduAI/QHack2021.
3. Some sponsors for the QHack event may organize additional spin-off challenges and prizes. Xanadu is not responsible for any spin-off challenges organized by any of the event’s sponsors (not just limited to those mentioned in the “Organizers and Sponsors Section”). Should these challenges be set up, they would be subject to their organizer’s own Terms and Conditions. Xanadu’s only role in these instances would be to provide the email addresses and Captain information for the identified qualifying teams of the spin-off challenge.
4. Entries:
   1. must be the original work of the entrant (individual or team);
   2. must be submitted in English;
   3. must not contain material that is inappropriate, indecent, contain profanity, nudity, sexual content; hateful content of any kind; content that promotes violence or harm to another living creature; or any other offensive content (as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion);
   4. must not contain material that promotes any activities that may appear unsafe or dangerous;
   5. must not contain material that promotes bigotry, racism, hatred or harm against any group or individual or promotes discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age;
   6. must not contain advertisements, personal solicitations or commercial solicitations; or promote any political agenda or party;
   7. must not include any trademarks, logos, or copyrighted materials for which you do not have the necessary rights, permissions or authority under applicable law, other than Organizer/Sponsor related materials, or advertise or promote any brand or product owned by any entity other than Organizer/Sponsor;
   8. must not contain materials for which you do not have the necessary rights, permissions or authority under applicable law to submit (e.g., materials embodying the names, likenesses, photographs, or other identifying elements of any person for which you have not obtained their relevant consent or do not otherwise have the authority to submit in your entry);
   9. must be in keeping with Xanadu’s image and not contain any material that could reflect negatively on the name, reputation, or goodwill of Xanadu, its subsidiaries or affiliates;
   10. must not violate or encourage the violation of any law, rule or regulation.
5. Submissions are final when the online Submission is completed and submitted and the appropriate entry period is closed. The Submission may not be edited, revised, or updated after the entry period is closed. If a Submission for the QHack QML Challenge is rejected due to failing the judging criteria, new Submissions may be prepared and submitted until the judging criteria is met. This applies only to the QHack QML Challenges. Only one Submission will be accepted from eligible teams for the QHack Open Hackathon, determined by the latest version received before the entry period is closed.
6. You hereby grant Xanadu a world-wide, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license and right to use, copy, reproduce, display, perform and publish, and otherwise exploit your Submission and waive all moral rights therein, including the right to make available any part or all of your Submission publically available in an online gallery hosted by Xanadu on https://pennylane.ai/ or its subdomains.
7. Xanadu reserves the right to have any Submission removed which, in its sole determination, does not comply with these Rules and Regulations. In such event, the entry associated with such Submission will be void.
8. Any costs or expenses (including taxes) incurred by the winners in claiming or using their prizes will be the responsibility of the winners. Prizes must be accepted as awarded. Sponsor reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value if stated prize becomes unavailable for reasons not related to the winner.
9. Xanadu reserves the right to change the number of prizes awarded for the QHack QML Challenge based on the volume of participation, but the number of prizes will be no more than 100.

10. A judging panel will review valid entries for the QHack Open Hackathon received during Entry Period and assess them to determine the winners. Subject to compliance with these rules, the winner will be announced on or about March 31, 2021. Chances of winning any prize will depend upon the number of entries received and the quality of the entries. Judges reserve the right to recuse themselves, at their discretion, in the case of a past or present relationship with the submitter. In such a case, an alternative judge will participate in the evaluation of the Submission. In the case of a tie, the leaderboard position is used as the tiebreaker. Should the tied teams have the same leaderboard score, that team with the earlier Submission will be the winner.

    All decisions of the Organizer and judging panel are final and not subject to appeal.

    The winner(s) of the QHack Open Hackathon must meet the CERN-specific eligibility requirements for their intern program found here (a description of the program can also be found here).

    Should there be less than three participants amongst the winning QHack Open Hackathon team or should the team participants not meet CERN’s eligibility requirements, it is at Xanadu’s sole discretion whether any further internships will be offered to the second place team participants (or third, or subsequent winner, as applicable).

11. Winners will be notified by email within 30 days after the Competition conclusion. After the verification and acceptance by all prize winners, a list of winner(s) for each award may be posted to the PennyLane webpage, QHack website and/or shared via social media.
12. Winners may be required to sign a release form confirming acceptance of the prize as awarded and releasing Xanadu and its affiliates from any liability relating to their prize. By entering this competition, entrants consent to the use of their names and/or photographs for publicity purposes without compensation, worldwide in perpetuity and in any form of media including the Internet. Without limiting Xanadu’s rights under Section 6, and for greater clarity, the winners consent to the promotion and hosting of Submission materials across Xanadu’s website, blog, social media accounts, and press releases.
13. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event will Xanadu, its affiliates, sponsors, or any of their employees, directors, consultants, contractors and agents have any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, punitive or other liability to participants, even if notified in advance of the possibility of such liability. In addition, Xanadu is not responsible for, (i) late, lost, delayed, not received, damaged, misdirected, incomplete, stolen, or illegible entries; or (ii) failure to receive entries due to transmission failures or technical failures of any kind, including malfunctioning of any network, servers, access providers, hardware or software, whether originating with sender or recipient. Xanadu reserves the right to cancel or modify (e.g., freezing work until such time the challenge can resume) the competition if, in its sole discretion, it determines that the competition is not capable of running as originally planned for any reason (such as tampering or infection by computer virus, fraud, technical failures, printing or distribution errors, or any other causes or occurrences have compromised the fairness or integrity of the competition). If, as a result of an error relating to the entry process, drawing or any other aspect of the competition, there are more potential winners of prizes than contemplated in the rules, there will be a random draw amongst all eligible prize claimants after the end of the Entry Period to award the prize.
14. Xanadu reserves the right to modify these General Rules and Regulations, though we will notify participants and provide them with an opportunity to review and accept the revised [terms] before participating in the QML Challenge. When participants accept such modified General Rules and Regulations or are proceeding to participate in the QML Challenge after having been made aware of such modification, participants are agreeing to accept the modified General Rules and Regulations.
15. Xanadu owns all rights, title and interest in all intellectual property, data, content and other materials made available to you in connection with the QML Challenge, including through the QML Challenge.
16. In the event of any discrepancy or inconsistency between the Terms and Conditions of these rules and disclosures or other statements contained in any competition-related materials, including the entry form, or point of sale, television, print or online advertising, the terms and conditions of these rules shall prevail, govern and control.
17. Persons who tamper with or abuse any aspect of the QML Challenge website or system, or attempt to undermine the legitimate operation of the QML Challenge by cheating, deception or other unfair practices, or intend to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any other entrant or any representative of Xanadu or who are in violation of these Official Rules, as solely determined by Xanadu, will be disqualified and all associated entries will be void. Any attempt to deliberately damage the content or operation of any of the challenges is unlawful and subject to legal action by Xanadu and/or their respective agents.