Background

Photos make up a major form of content at the telecentre.org website. And because photos have a story of their own to tell, telecentre.org is organizing the very first photo contest in the English website.

The contest will run from August 17 to September 30, 2009.

As with the recently concluded blog contest, the telecentre.org team hopes to encourage and inspire community members to share their greatest telecentre-related photos and earn recognition for their work.

The telecentre.org photo contest makes no distinction between professional and amateur photographers. In this contest, we will let the pictures do the talking.

Theme

The theme of the contest is “Celebrating telecentre successes”. Entries should therefore capture images depicting victories, whether big or small, in the telecentre environment.

Contest Mechanics

1. The contest is open to all registered members of the telecentre.org English community. To become a member, follow this link.

2. Community facilitators, officers and staff of telecentre.org and its social investors are not eligible to participate in the contest.

3. To participate in the contest, member must do the following for each contest entry:

a. Upload the photo in the photos section of the telecentre.org website with the following information:

1. Title – Write an appropriate short title for your photo.
2. Caption – Include a caption or brief description of your photo. It should capture the 5W’s – who, what, where, when and why – and must not exceed 100 words.
3. Tag – Aside from other tags you’d like to add, your photo entry must bear the following required tag: "telecentre.org photo contest 2009". This will enable telecentre.org to identify all contest entries.

NOTE: Immediately after uploading your photo, add your photo details by clicking the add more details for this photo link right before the save button.

b. Send an email to tcphotocontest@gmail.com with the subject “telecentre.org Photo Contest 2009 Entry” and the following information in the body of the email:

1. Full Name of Photographer/Owner
2. Photographer/Owner’s Complete Mailing Address
3. Title of Photo – This should be exactly the same as in the uploaded photo.
4. Caption or Brief Description of Photo – This should also be exactly the same as in the uploaded photo.

NOTE: Uploaded photo without the required accompanying e-mail (or vice versa, that is, an e-mail where the photo is not uploaded onto the telecentre.org website) shall be considered an incomplete entry and be automatically rejected. Likewise, any required information not provided will result in a submitted entry being disqualified from consideration.

4. Entries must be submitted in JPEG format (as .jpg files) and should be between 600-800 pixels.

5. Contest entry may OR may not be an action photo as long as it has a relevant story to tell.

6. A member may submit a maximum of five entries. In case more than five entries are received from the same individual, only the first five entries will be considered for evaluation.

NOTE: As mentioned above, for every photo posted as a contest entry, there should be a corresponding e-mail. So if five photos are posted, five e-mails must be sent containing the respective details of each photo.

7. A participant can only win once. As such, for participants with more than one submitted photo, entries will be subject to elimination by the telecentre.org team and the best one will be selected for final evaluation.

8. A submitted entry must be an original work and must be exclusive to this contest. That is, it must be unpublished and it must not have been submitted in other contests, whether in the telecentre community or elsewhere.

9. A submitted entry must not in any way violate any copyright or intellectual property right. Privacy must likewise be protected especially in certain instances such as showing faces of children and people with disabilities. Telecentre.org shall not be responsible for copyright or IPR violations with respect to entries submitted in the photo contest.

10. By participating in the contest, member automatically grants telecentre.org the non-exclusive right to use, copy, adapt, transmit, distribute, publish and display submitted entry, applicable worldwide and in perpetuity.

11. telecentre.org reserves the right to reject entries that are incomplete, invalid, or that contain inappropriate information (e.g. ads or other controversial or offensive material).

12. All contest entries must be posted on the telecentre.org website and corresponding emails received by 11:59pm GMT on Thursday, September 30, 2009.

13. Contest entries will be subject to validation/elimination by the telecentre.org team, and all validated entries will be submitted for evaluation by a panel of judges to be appointed by the former. The decision of the panel of judges is final.

14. Evaluation of entries shall be done based on the following criteria:
o Relevance to the Theme – 35%
o Composition and Creativity – 35%
o Clarity and Technical Quality – 30%

15. Based on the given criteria, the panel of judges will determine the winning five photos from among the contest entries.

16. Winners will be announced via the telecentre.org website within one month after the deadline for submission of entries. Winners will likewise be notified via email by the telecentre.org team.

17. Winners will each receive special prizes from telecentre.org. Winning entries will also be featured in telecentre.org publications.

18. By participating in the contest, members acknowledge that they have read, understood and agree to be bound by the contest rules. Further, by participating in the contest, members certify to the ownership and authenticity of their respective photos.

19. If a winner is later discovered to have violated any of the contest rules, the award will be forfeited and member will not be permitted to enter similar telecentre.org contests in the future.

Download photo contest guidelines:
tc.org Photo Contest Guidelines for Community.pdf