General Guidelines

1. General Guidelines

The Challenge invitation and all case materials will be posted at www.ie.tsinghua.edu.cn and www.clds.unc.edu by April 1, 2008.

Each team will be comprised of no more than three student members. Students must be full-time graduate or undergraduate students at participating universities.

Each team may be advised by a coach or faculty member from their home university. All discussions with your coach must remain confidential and cannot be shared with other team members. A faculty coach is recommended but not required.

Students and their coach will have access the data provided by The Boeing Company as part of the attached case, as well as any publicly available information such as reports and articles available on the Internet. 

Teams may make necessary assumptions in developing their case. Assumptions must be clearly stated in the entry.

Clarifying questions about the case must be addressed to The Challenge Coordinator, Ms. Li Zhongyue, Tsinghua-UNC Center for Logistics and Enterprise Development, Tsinghua University, Beijing; Tel. 86-10-62781451; Fax 86-10-62794399; email lizhongyue@tsinghua.edu.cn. 

Questions and answers relevant to the general execution of the case will be made available to all teams that have registered on-line at www.ie.tsinghua.edu.cn or faxed their registration form to the Challenge Coordinator. 

2. Rules of the Challenge

Student teams must register online at www.ie.tsinghua.edu.cn or fax/email a copy of the completed registration form to the Challenge Coordinator. Teams are requested to register to participate in the Challenge as early as possible after the announcement, but no later than May 1, 2008. 

All teams must also submit a Terms and Conditions Agreement stating that the team members and the faculty coach agree to abide by the rules of The 2008 Boeing Shanghai Challenge. A draft of the letter is provided at the end of this document. This letter must be signed by all team members and the faculty coach, and faxed or emailed as a pdf to the Challenge Coordinator.

When first round entry materials are received (See Part 4), the student team will receive 200 RMB to cover material costs of preparing the presentation. The funds will be made available to the designated team member in the bank account indicated on the registration form.

All entries must be received electronically by the Challenge Coordinator by 5:00PM, June 4, 2008, Beijing time. From the entries received by June 4, 2008, a small number of finalists will be selected to participate in a final round of competition. 

Finalist teams will be selected by a panel consisting of Boeing Company executives and university faculty from participating institutions. Teams that have been selected to travel to Beijing for the final round will be notified by June 15, 2008.

All finalist teams will be required to come to Beijing to present their entry to The Boeing Company on July 9, 2008. All travel and hotel expenses to Beijing from their home cities will be paid for all members of the winning team, plus the faculty coach. 

Selection of the top three (3) winners will be made by The Boeing Company. Their decision will be final.

The prizes for the top three winners are

1st Prize $1,500US

2nd Prize $1,000US

3rdPrize $ 750US.

Winning universities will receive trophies. Challenge winners are responsible for any taxes.

3. Entry Requirements and Presentation Materials

All entry materials must be submitted electronically to the Challenge Coordinator. 

An entry consists of 1) a Powerpoint presentation that summarizes the primary concepts of your entry and 2) a Word document describing the details of your concept. The Word document may be supported by other electronic attachments such as Excel spreadsheets, pdf attachments of drawings and/or flowcharts. 

All entry materials must be submitted in English.

Questions about presentation content and format should be addressed to the Challenge Coordinator.   

4. Selection Criteria 

All entries will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

· Creativity of Solution

The main idea of your entry must be original. Many ideas for reducing the carbon footprint of aviation products and services are being adopted. You can build on some of these ideas but your entry must make an original contribution. Or can also adopt and adapt concepts from a different discipline. Be creative!

· Technical Feasibility 

Originality is very important, but you must show that your concept is technically feasible. The aviation industry must be able to implement your idea now or in the future. Your entry must demonstrate feasibility and a roadmap to implementation.

· Depth and Completeness of Technical Analysis

From concept to action, you will be judged on the depth and completeness of your reasoning, technical analysis, and calculations.

· Clarity of Presentation

Since you are trying to convince The Boeing Company of the value of your idea, the quality of your written and oral presentation is very important. Your Powerpoint presentation should be to-the-point, complete, and well-presented. The report should be well-organized and well-written. 

5. Timetable for The Challenge

April 4, 2008 Announcement of The 2008 Boeing Shanghai Challenge

May 1, 2008 Deadline for Receipt of Intention Letter

June 4, 2008 Deadline for Receipt of Entries

June 15, 2008 Announcement of Five (5) Finalist Teams

July 9, 2008 Final Presentations to Boeing Executives, Competition Dinner and Announcement of Winning Team

6. Confidentiality of Information 

By participating in The Challenge, teams may have access to information and various kinds of knowledge (in particular commercial, financial, technical and marketing knowledge) concerning the activities, operations and business strategies of The Boeing Company (hereinafter called “Information”). Teams may also have access to information concerning individuals belonging to The Boeing Company.

Teams shall take measures necessary to keep any proprietary information strictly confidential, except for Information that has already fallen into the public domain.

The confidentiality obligation shall continue after the end of The Challenge, for any reason whatsoever, until such time as the object of this clause ceases to exist. 

7. Disqualification

At its sole discretion, The Boeing Company may exclude or ban a team from participating if the team or one of its members does not comply with the official rules or acts in an unfair way. The teams shall have no recourse against the disqualification decision.

The Boeing Company forbids the teams, at any stage of The Challenge, from communicating with each other their strategy or any information concerning The Challenge before the final presentation in Beijing on July 9, 2008.

8. Intellectual Property Considerations

Team members and the faculty coach acknowledge and agree that 1) The Boeing Company has no obligation to maintain the submission as confidential and 2) The Boeing Company may disclose the submission to Boeing employees as well as third parties as part of the submission evaluation process.

Team members and the faculty coach acknowledge and agree that The Boeing Company may have developed, may be developing now or in the future, or may receive from third parties information and concepts that are similar to the submission. Accordingly, The Boeing Company shall not be restricted from developing or having products, concepts, systems, or techniques developed that are similar to or compete with the subject matter of the research proposal.

Team members and the faculty coach represent and warrant that, to the best of his/her knowledge, the submission and the subject matter do not violate or infringe any proprietary rights of a third party including, without limitations, confidential relationships, trade secrets, patent, trademark or copyright rights.

9. Contact Information

All questions regarding The Boeing Challenge should be addressed to The Challenge Coordinator, as follows: