RULES OF PARTICIPATION

Rules of Participation

Creatella Impact, Inc. (Corporation) is a non-profit charitable organization incorporated in the United States of America, whose mission is to create impact by supporting social entrepreneurs and start-up businesses principally in emerging markets to build sustainable enterprises addressing social and environmental challenges, with a strong focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (“Creatella Impact”, “we” or “us”).

LauncHER is an impact and action oriented gender lens education and training program for aspiring women and girls entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs who lead early-stage, impactful enterprises with disruptive innovations and tech solutions contributing to SDGs (“Programme”).

The Programme is presented by Creatella Impact (the “Organizer”) jointly with Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship (ECE). The organizer coordinates and manages the Programme.

The Programme is fully remote and offers tools, resources and opportunities to women entrepreneurs and helps them turn their ideas and economic potential into power to advance economic empowerment of women and girls.

Rules of Participation

In addition to the information provided on Programme website launcherimpact.org (“Website”), the following Rules of Participation (“ROP”) state the standards and conduct required of the Programme participants. The ROP shall apply to (a) Participants, (b) each individual, founder and team members of Startups, (c) anyone who has contacted the Organizer through any means to find out more about or to participate in the Programme.
By submitting their application, Participants expressly agree to be bound by the ROP. Failure to comply with the ROP set out herein will invalidate the participation of the Participants in the Programme.
Organizer reserves the right to change the format of the Programme.
Organizer reserves the right to cancel the Programme or amend the ROP at any time as it is necessary without prior notice.
Participants (as defined below) shall indicate their acceptance of the ROP by ticking the boxes provided for this purpose on the application form when submitting their application online.
The Participants acknowledge and agree to the characteristic and limit of the internet, especially as far as technical performance is concerned, response time to consult, or transfer information, the risks of interruption and more generally, the risks inherent to any connection and transmission on the internet, the absence of protection of certain data against any misappropriation and the risks of contamination by any viruses circulating on the network.

Participants

Participation in the Programme is open to individuals at the minimum age of 18 years at the date of the initiation of the Programme (“Participant(s)”) who are aspiring entrepreneurs or who run a startup that is led by women and/or gender-balanced teams (“Startup(s)”), with access to the internet and an email address.

Participants Eligibility Requirements

Eligibility. To qualify to participate in the Programme, the Participants shall meet the following requirements:

Women Leadership – Startups shall have at least one woman in a key leadership role (CEO, COO, CMO, CTO etc.) and women have to own 20% or more of the startup ownership.
For-profit businesses – Startup shall be incorporated to pursue financial profit alongside social and environmental impact. Participants from Not-for-profit entities are also eligible but not the primary target audience of the Programme.
Impact – Startups need to address at least one, but preferably more than one of the SDGs.
Age – Applicant needs to be at least 18 on application deadline.
Language – The founder(s) shall have a good command of English
Availability – Participants shall be available to join the Programme during the period of Programme announced on the website
Legal & others:

No restriction towards applicants with history of bankruptcy, liquidation, judicial settlement, safeguarding issues, cessation of activity, etc. However, applicants without any legal impediments preferred.
Leadership, board of directors and the entity are currently not subject to sanction measures under the United Nations financial sanctions lists.
Founders or board of directors shall have no affiliation with any political party in the geography of the Programme or hold a position in government entities.

2. Verification. Organizer reserves the right to verify the eligibility of all Participants.

Duration

The Programme duration will be announced on the website. Organizer reserves the right to postpone, modify, cancel or repeat the Programme if circumstances demand. Any change will be notified by an announcement on the Website. In any event, the Organizer and its affiliates may not be held liable in the case of modification of the dates and duration of the Programme.

Registration and Timetable

Registration

The Participants shall follow the terms and conditions in this ROP to participate in the Programme:

The Programme is accessible online from a computer and/or any device with internet access via https://launcherimpact.org/
The Participant undertakes to fill in all the mandatory fields of the entry form accurately in order to validate their participation and be contacted. If a question is not applicable, please write “NA”.
Any incomplete, erroneous, false, counterfeit or fraudulent entry may not be considered to be participating in the Programme.
By submitting the Applications and registering for the Programme, the Participant warrants to have all the rights, titles and/or interest in the Startup submitted and declares that the information it contains is true, current, accurate and complete, and that by submitting the Startup and registering to the Programme, the Participant is not and will not be violating any contract or third party rights including any patent, copyright, trade secret, proprietary or confidential information, trademark, publicity or privacy rights.

2. Timetable

The Participants shall follow the timetable announced on the website.

Evaluation and Selection Process

Evaluation and Selection Process
Screening for eligibility and selection: All Participants will be screened for eligibility and be assessed by the Organizer for selection into the programme.

2. Final Decision

In the event of any dispute, whether such dispute concerns the conduct or eligibility of Participants, the results and/or any and all other matters relating to the Programme, the Organizer, and/or the judges’ decisions shall be considered final. No legal recourse shall be available to the Participants.

Participation

If selected for the Programme, the Participants shall commit to and available for the activities that are relevant to them.

Alumni Status

Participants completing all mandatory requirements of the Programme will receive a certificate and be eligible for Alumni status.

Alumni Benefits

Variety of benefits (up to 5 free mentorship sessions, prizes, perks, media promotion and potential investment from participating investors).

Disqualification

Organizer’s Rights

Organizer reserves the right to disqualify any Participant discovered to be ineligible.
Organizer may cancel all or part of the Programme if it appears that fraud has occurred in any form whatsoever, including due to IT, within the framework of participation in the Programme or determining the winners. Organizer reserves the right not to attribute prizes to the fraudsters and/or initiate proceedings against the perpetrators of such fraud before the competent jurisdictions.

2. Disqualification Events

By participating in the Programme, each Participant accepts all the conditions set out in ROP and agrees to be bound by the decisions of the Organizer, and/or the Judges and warrants that they are eligible to participate in the Programme. In the event of failure by a Participant to comply with the ROP, Organizer reserves the right to remove any entry or disqualify such Participant from the Programme, without the Participant being able to claim any recourse. The following are the events that are considered as event of failure if a Participant does not comply:

The Participants shall at all time not conduct any practices which may lead to criminal liability due to fraud or embezzlement, insolvency crimes, unfair competition, guaranteeing advantages, bribery, acceptance of bribes or other corruption crimes on the part of persons employed by them or other third parties.
In the event of fraud or misconduct which affects the integrity of the Programme or the Organizer and/or its affiliated companies.
In addition, a Participant may be disqualified:

if Organizer has reasonable grounds to believe the Participant has breached any portion of the ROP including any of the organizational measures as set out in the Website; and/or
if a Participant is found to be acting in an inappropriate or unsportsmanlike manner or with the intent to abuse, threaten, or harass any other person; and/or
if there is any attempt by any Participant to deliberately damage or undermine the legitimate operation of the Programme.

General

The main language of The Programme shall be English. The Participants shall have good command of the English language.
The Participants shall bear any and all costs and expenses incurred by Participants in relation to the Programme, unless otherwise stated.
Participants must be willing to participate in PR opportunities in relation to the Programme including having a short summary of their business, photographs and video footage featured online on the Organizer’s websites and social media channels and offline in various media publications. Participants shall not claim any compensation for taking part in the PR-related activities.
The Organizer reserves the right, and the Participant agrees, to feature the Participant’s name, short business description, photo or video in any future promotional campaign in relation to the Programme.

Agreement

The Organizer takes no responsibility for agreements made or relationships that develop between any of the Programme Participants, judges, mentors, investors, sponsors or other third-parties. This includes the decision regarding how to distribute any cash or in-kind awards among the Participant’s team.

Payment

Applicants will be enrolled in the Program only after the confirmation of payment of the fee as described in the programme website. No refund of payment will be made to the applicant after the official commencement date of the programme announced on the programme website. Those applicants who can not continue the Programme for a cause, will be considered for inclusion in the future cohorts.

Confidentiality

The application form along with any additional business information submitted by the Participants will be treated confidentially by the Organizer and their team members. Other than a brief summary of the Startups (name of the business, brief description of the company, and field), no other information will be made available to the public without the prior authorisation of the relevant Participant. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Organizer, their team members, the judges and mentors shall not be held responsible if information relating to the Participant’s business is released to the public by a third party.
Due to the nature of competition, we will not ask mentors, facilitators, reviewers, staff, and audience to agree to or sign non-disclosure statements for any Participant. By participating in the Programme, Participants agree that neither the Organizer, nor their designate staffs/teams members assume any liability whatsoever for any disclosures of business plan information which may be made (whether inadvertently or otherwise) by any judge, mentor, facilitator, reviewer, staff/team member, audience member, or other individual connected with, participating in, viewing, hearing or receiving information from the Programme.
Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions, including Demo Day should be considered information that will likely enter the public domain, and competitors should not assume any right of confidentiality to any data or information discussed, divulged or presented in these sessions. Neither the Organizer nor their designated teams/staff assume any duty to screen or otherwise control the identity of those attending, viewing or hearing all or part of these public sessions. The Participants agree that by entering the Programme, they have been made aware that such attendees, viewers and recipients may include members of the media and potential competitors in addition to members of the financial and investor communities.

Third Party Applications

As part of the Programme application process, the Participant may be required to subscribe to applications or services provided by third parties. These may include document management services and digital technology solutions.

The Organizer shall not be responsible for the services provided by third parties, including their terms and conditions of use, data collection policies or security management processes and procedures. The Participants shall use third party applications and services at their own risk and the Organizer shall not be liable for any issues arising out of such use.

Limit of Liability

The Organizer shall not accept any responsibility for any damage, loss, injury or disappointment suffered by any Participant participating in the Programme or as a result of accepting any prize. Furthermore, the Organizer will not accept any responsibility resulting from any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers, server providers, computer equipment, standard mail, etc. resulting in the failure to receive emails, telephone messages relating to the programme and/or other correspondence. Nothing shall exclude liability for death and personal injury as a result of negligence.
The Organizer makes no warranty in respect of and shall not be held liable for the accuracy and completeness of any information, drawings, designs or other documents of whatever nature relating to the Startups provided by the Participants.
The Organizer shall not be held liable if, in the case of a force majeure or circumstances independent of its intention, the Programme had to be modified, shortened or canceled. The Organizer reserves the possibility, in any event, to extend the participation period and postpone any date announced.
The Organizer shall not be liable for any direct or indirect damage resulting from an interruption or malfunction of any kind and for any reason whatsoever or for any direct or indirect damage that would result, in any way, from connection Website.
The Organizer shall not be held liable for any issues resulting from the characteristic and limits of the internet, including but not limited to the transmission and/or receipt of any data and/or information on the internet, any malfunction of the internet network preventing the proper running or functioning of the Programme, any deft or any reception equipment or communication line, lost of any paper or electronic mail and loss of any data, consequences of any virus, IT bugs, or technical failure, any damage caused to a Participant’s computer or device, or any technical, any type of hardware or software fault, having prevented or limited the possibility of participating in the Competition or having damaged a Participant’s system.
Any modification to the ROP will enter into force once it is put online and any Participant will be considered to have agreed to them by the simple fact of their participation in the Programme, from the date of entry into force of the modification.
Any Participant refusing the modification(s) made must withdraw from the Programme. No compensation may be requested by Participants.

Intellectual Property

The Organizer takes no part in, and has no liability for, the domestic or international intellectual property rights of competition participants. Participants are responsible for their own intellectual property. Participants must keep confidential information confidential.
By submitting an application, each Participant hereby represents and warrants to the Organizer that:

they have all right, title and/or interest in the application submitted and that the information it contains is accurate and complete,
they are not and shall not be violating any contract or third party rights including any patent, copyright, trade secret, proprietary or confidential information, trademark, publicity or privacy right. This could mean that they created the technology, that the patent is in their name, or that they have written permission of the person or organization that owns the intellectual property. Any Participant that violates this will be automatically disqualified from the Programme.

Data Protection

All Participants are required to read and consent to the Data Protection Notice (“Notice”) applicable to their participation.
Data Protection Notice

INFORMATION AND CONSENT REGARDING THE PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA: PARTICIPANTS MUST READ THIS NOTICE BEFORE SUBMITTING INFORMATION ABOUT THEMSELVES AND THEIR BUSINESS.

THE PARTICIPANTS HEREBY EXPRESSLY CONSENTS TO THE COLLECTION, USE, DISCLOSURE AND TRANSFER, IN ELECTRONIC OR OTHER FORM, OF THE PARTICIPANT’S PERSONAL DATA AS DESCRIBED IN THIS NOTICE BY AND AMONG, AS APPLICABLE, THE ORGANIZER, AND THE ORGANIZER’S TEAM MEMBERS AND ITS AFFILIATES FOR THE EXCLUSIVE PURPOSE OF IMPLEMENTING, ADMINISTERING AND MANAGING THE PARTICIPANT’S PARTICIPATION IN THE PROGRAMME.

Organizer may collect, use, disclose or otherwise process personal data of Participants of the Programme. This Notice applies to personal data in our possession or under our control, including personal data in the possession of organisations which we have engaged to collect, use, disclose or process personal data for our purposes.

Collection and Use of Personal Data the Participants

Depending on the nature of your interaction with us, some examples of personal data which we may collect from you include your name and identification information such as your national identification number, contact information such as your address, email address or telephone number, nationality, gender, date of birth, resumé, photographs and other audio-visual information, current occupation and financial information such as bank account information (hereinafter collectively referred to as “Personal Data”).

We may collect and use Participants personal data for any or all of the following purposes:

managing and administering the Programme and communicating with Participants
verifying Participants identity;
updating the Programme, responding to, handling, and processing queries, requests, applications, and feedback from Participants;
managing Participants relationship with us;
promotional campaigns, public relations and marketing opportunities in relation to the Programme, including having a short summary of Participants business, photographs and video footage featured online on the Programme Website and the Organizer’s website and social media channels and offline in various media publications;
sending programme and marketing information about the Programme and the Organizer including notifying you of our events, initiatives, investments and other information;
complying with any applicable laws, regulations, codes of practice, guidelines, or rules, or to assist in law enforcement and investigations conducted by any governmental and/or regulatory authority;
any other purposes for which Participant have provided the information; \
transmitting to any unaffiliated third parties including our third party service providers and agents, and relevant governmental and/or regulatory authorities, whether in New York or abroad, for the aforementioned purposes; and
any other incidental business purposes related to or in connection with the above.

Disclosure and Transfer of Personal Data of the Participants

We may disclose and transfer Participants personal data:

where such disclosure is required for performing obligations in the course of or in connection with the Programme;
to our affiliates, other Organizers, mentors, judges, partners and potential investors, for the purpose of The Programme administration, organizing the mentoring, Pre-acceleration, evaluation, pitching, demo day, networking sessions and potential funding or investment of the Participants. These affiliates, mentors, judges, partners and potential investors may be located outside New York and in any jurisdiction; or
to third party service providers, agents and other organisations in any jurisdiction we have engaged to perform any of the functions listed in above for us.

The purposes listed in the foregoing paragraphs may continue to apply even in situations where your relationship with us (for example, the end of participation with The Programme) has been terminated or altered in any way, for a reasonable period thereafter, including Organizer’s right to feature the Participants’ names in promotional campaigns for their future programmes.

Access to and Correction of Personal Data

Participants may request access to any information held by the Organizer and to correct any inaccuracies.

If a Participant wishes to make (a) an access request for access to a copy of the personal data which we hold about such Participant or information about the ways in which we use or disclose your personal data, or (b) a correction request to correct or update any of Participants personal data which we hold about the Participant, such Participant may submit the request in writing or via email at the contact details provided below.

We will respond to such requests as soon as reasonably practicable. If we are unable to provide you with any personal data or to make a correction requested by you, we shall generally inform you of the reasons why we are unable to do so (except where we are not required to do so under the relevant applicable laws).

Protection of Personal Data

[To safeguard your personal data from unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification, disposal or similar risks, we have introduced appropriate administrative, and technical measures such as up-to-date antivirus protection, encryption and the use of privacy filters to secure all storage and transmission of personal data by us, and disclosing personal data both internally and to our authorized third party service providers and agents only on a need-to-know basis.]

[The Participants should be aware, however, that no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is completely secure. While security cannot be guaranteed, we strive to protect the security of Participants information and are constantly reviewing and enhancing our information security measures.]

Accuracy of Personal Data

We generally rely on personal data provided by the Participants (or their authorized representative). In order to ensure that the Participant personal data is current, complete and accurate, please update us if there are changes to the personal data by informing our Data Protection Contact in writing via email at the contact details provided below.

Retention of Personal Data

We may retain your personal data for as long as it is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected, or as required or permitted by relevant applicable laws.

Data Protection Contact

The Participants may contact the email below for any enquiries or feedback on our personal data protection policies and procedures, or if the Participant wishes to make any update, correction or request:

programs@launcherimpact.org

Effect of Notice and Changes to Notice

We may revise this Notice from time to time without any prior notice. You may determine if any such revision has taken place by referring to the date on which this Notice was last updated. Your continued use of our services constitutes your acknowledgement and acceptance of such changes.

Governing Law and Jurisdiction

The ROP shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of New York, without regard to the choice of law principles thereof. Any action, claim, suit or other legal proceeding relating to these Rules of Participations shall be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in New York County, State of New York, USA (or any appellate courts therefrom). The parties expressly waive any objection based on personal jurisdiction, venue or forum non convenient. EACH PARTY HEREBY IRREVOCABLY WAIVES ALL RIGHTS TO TRIAL BY JURY IN ANY ACTION, CLAIM, SUIT, PROCEEDING OR COUNTERCLAIM (WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE) ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THIS AGREEMENT OR THE ACTIONS OF SUCH PARTY IN THE NEGOTIATION, ADMINISTRATION, PERFORMANCE AND ENFORCEMENT HEREOF.