I think this is at Zindi discretion, if they feel they need to add more time for better solutions. There's nothing against the rules here, the rules declared are for parficipants not about the decisions Zindi can't make regarding the competition they organized.

Overall, it seems clear this isn't just a competition but a search for the greatest solution to offer their client. Zindi might already have a baseline score of their own implementation, it's possible on the average present leaderboard might not reflect their expectation. So, more time for high quality solutions

Yes I get.. You are right; then more submissions or reset submissions for extension should be provided

The rules literally say: "We reserve the right to update the contest timeline if necessary."

I agree with you that it's not fair (especially to you guys in the Top5). Nonetheless, as @Wassim rightly stated, it is within @Zindi's rights to do so.

I would suggest to @Zindi, for competitions with a certain amoint of complexity and difficulty as this one, to think about setting a baseline score. So those above that baseline would be eligible to the pool prize.

We should not be too worry. I have been working on this 4 months as well. New comers need to work much much harder than us in order to catch up ;-)

Any solution that is based on a constant value (zeros for example) won't be eligible for a prize unless it provides a strong justification why is it a viable solution to be used in real life setup.

@ZzyZx Though i don't understand what you mean by constants being multiplied by submission values. What Zindi really mean is uploading of constant values (e.g Zeroes all through inside your csv file) is not allowed. That is submission file should contain only variables not constant values.

mm..sure thanks @MICADEE