TotalEnergies Uganda welcomes you to the TotalEnergies rEVolution Hackathon, implemented by Outbox Uganda, to deliver optimal locations of EV charging points in Kampala considering several constraints like traffic, optimum coverage and population density and usage.

The lack of optimal locations for electric vehicle (EV) charging points in Kampala presents a significant challenge for the adoption and usage of electric vehicles. Factors such as traffic congestion, optimum coverage, population density, and usage patterns need to be considered to ensure the effective implementation of EV charging infrastructure. Therefore, there is a need to address this problem by identifying and delivering the most suitable locations for EV charging points in Kampala.

The primary objective of the hackathon is to develop innovative solutions that can identify the optimal locations for EV charging points in Kampala. Participants will be encouraged to leverage data analytics, machine learning, and other relevant technologies to analyse various constraints, such as traffic patterns, coverage requirements, population density, and EV usage.

Another key objective of the hackathon is to create solutions that can be seamlessly integrated into Total Energies' mobility mandate. The proposed solutions should be scalable, ensuring that the identified optimal charging point locations can be implemented effectively and expanded across the city as the demand for EVs grows.

The hackathon aims to foster collaboration and innovation by bringing together diverse participants, including software developers, data analysts, urban planners, and mobility experts. The objective is to encourage interdisciplinary thinking and the exchange of ideas to address the challenges associated with EV charging infrastructure in Kampala.

The benefits of this solution are:

1. Environmental Benefits: Electric vehicles have the potential to reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality, addressing the growing concerns of pollution in Kampala. By identifying optimal locations for EV charging points, the solution can encourage the adoption of electric vehicles and contribute to a cleaner and healthier environment.
2. Transportation Efficiency: Efficiently placed EV charging points can help reduce congestion and optimize traffic flow by encouraging the use of EVs. By considering factors such as traffic patterns and population density, the solution can contribute to a more efficient transportation system in Kampala.
3. Accessibility and Convenience: Strategically placed EV charging points ensure easy accessibility for EV owners, enabling them to conveniently charge their vehicles. By considering optimum coverage, the solution can ensure that charging infrastructure is evenly distributed across Kampala, providing a convenient charging experience for EV users.
4. Economic Growth and Job Creation: The implementation of EV charging infrastructure can contribute to economic growth and job creation. As the adoption of EVs increases, the demand for charging point installations, maintenance, and related services will also rise. By addressing this need, the solution can support the development of a new industry and create employment opportunities in Kampala.

About Outbox Uganda Limited

Outbox is an entrepreneurship support organisation established in 2012 with a mission to bring together the knowledge, capital, infrastructure, and people that enable early stage small and growing businesses to succeed. ​

This is achieved through business acceleration, business & transaction advisory, digital skilling and enabling corporate innovation. ​

Outbox has partnered with government, corporate and development organisations that are ambitious and bold enough to unlock the potential of small and growing businesses in Uganda.

About TotalEnergies

TotalEnergies is a broad energy company that produces and markets energies on a global scale: oil and biofuels, natural gas and green gases, renewables and electricity. Their 105,000 employees are committed to energy that is ever more affordable, clean, reliable and accessible to as many people as possible.

1st place: $5 000 USD

2nd place: $3 000 USD

3rd place: $2 000 USD

Note that there are no leaderboard scores for this competition, as evaluations will be completed by a panel of judges.

You will need to submit your script or notebook, as well as documentation. The documentation can be in .DOCX , .PDF or .PPTX format, and must give a high-level overview of the steps you used in your solution.

Your solution can be as creative and innovative as you like. Submissions will be evaluated at the close of the competition by a panel of judges on the following criteria:

• Technical Skills: Evaluate the technical skills of the applicants in areas such as data analysis, data visualization, programming, machine learning, and statistical modelling. This can be done by reviewing their academic qualifications, coding skills, and previous projects.
• Relevant Experience: Look for applicants who have experience working with mobility data or electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Experience in related fields such as transportation, energy, and sustainability can also be valuable.
• Creativity and Innovation: Identify applicants who have a creative and innovative approach to problem-solving. This can be assessed by reviewing their previous projects or asking them to provide examples of novel solutions they have developed.
• Teamwork and Collaboration: Select applicants who have experience working in teams and have demonstrated effective communication and collaboration skills. This is important as the hackathon will require participants to work together in teams of four.
• Time Management and Adaptability: Look for applicants who can work under pressure and manage their time effectively. The hackathon will be a time-constrained event, so participants must be able to adapt to changing circumstances and work efficiently.
• Passion and Enthusiasm: Select applicants who are passionate about rEVolution, electric vehicles, and sustainability. They should be motivated to participate in the hackathon and contribute to the team's success.
• Diversity and Inclusion: Ensure that the selected participants represent a diverse range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. This can help to foster creativity and innovation and ensure a fair and inclusive hackathon experience for all participants.

This challenge starts on 18 September at 08:00 AM.

Competition closes on 20 September at 07:00 PM.

We reserve the right to update the contest timeline if necessary.

This challenge is only open to participants residing in Uganda.

Teams and collaboration

Participation of a participant in the rEVolution Hackathon is accepted on the condition of compliance with the following additional eligibility criteria, namely:

· Participant must be part of one and only one team to take part in the Event

· Participant teams must have no more than four (4) participants

· Each participant team must have appointed a Team Leader

Multiple accounts per user are not permitted, and neither is collaboration or membership across multiple teams. Individuals and their submissions originating from multiple accounts will be immediately disqualified from the hackathon.

Code must not be shared privately outside of a team. Any code that is shared, must be made available to all competition participants through the platform. (i.e. on the discussion boards).

The Zindi data scientist who sets up a team is the default Team Leader but they can transfer leadership to another data scientist on the team. The Team Leader can invite other data scientists to their team. Invited data scientists can accept or reject invitations. Until a second data scientist accepts an invitation to join a team, the data scientist who initiated a team remains an individual on the leaderboard. No additional members may be added to teams within the last hour of the competition.

The team leader can initiate a merge with another team. Only the team leader of the second team can accept the invite. The default team leader is the leader from the team who initiated the invite. Teams can only merge if the total number of members is less than or equal to the maximum team size of the competition.

Personal data and submissions

The personal data that you share during user registration, including but not limited to name, email address, telephone number, and individual CVs, resume, etc., will not be shared with any parties other than the Organizers, Judges and Mentors solely for the purposes of executing the Hackathon, advertising/marketing and/or advertising/marketing future Event opportunities to you, and distributing prize money. Explicit consent for any other uses of your personal data is requested during the registration process.

Datasets and packages

The solution must use publicly-available, open-source packages only.

You may use only the datasets provided for this competition. Automated machine learning tools such as automl are not permitted.

You may use pretrained models as long as they are openly available to everyone.

The data used in this competition is the sole property of Zindi and the competition host. You may not transmit, duplicate, publish, redistribute or otherwise provide or make available any competition data to any party not participating in the Competition (this includes uploading the data to any public site such as Kaggle or GitHub). You may upload, store and work with the data on any cloud platform such as Google Colab, AWS or similar, as long as 1) the data remains private and 2) doing so does not contravene Zindi’s rules of use.

You must notify Zindi immediately upon learning of any unauthorised transmission of or unauthorised access to the competition data, and work with Zindi to rectify any unauthorised transmission or access.

Your solution must not infringe the rights of any third party and you must be legally entitled to assign ownership of all rights of copyright in and to the winning solution code to Zindi.

Submissions and winning

The winners will be paid via bank transfer, PayPal, or other international money transfer platform. International transfer fees will be deducted from the total prize amount, unless the prize money is under $500, in which case the international transfer fees will be covered by Zindi. In all cases, the winners are responsible for any other fees applied by their own bank or other institution for receiving the prize money. All taxes imposed on prizes are the sole responsibility of the winners. The top 3 winners or team leaders will be required to present Zindi with proof of identification, proof of residence and a letter from your bank confirming your banking details.Winners will be paid in USD or the currency of the competition. If your account cannot receive US Dollars or the currency of the competition then your bank will need to provide proof of this and Zindi will try to accommodate this.

Payment will be made after code review.

You acknowledge and agree that Zindi may, without any obligation to do so, remove or disqualify an individual, team, or account if Zindi believes that such individual, team, or account is in violation of these rules. Entry into this competition constitutes your acceptance of these official competition rules.

Zindi is committed to providing solutions of value to our clients and partners. To this end, we reserve the right to disqualify your submission on the grounds of usability or value. This includes but is not limited to the use of data leaks or any other practices that we deem to compromise the inherent value of your solution.

Zindi also reserves the right to disqualify you and/or your submissions from any competition if we believe that you violated the rules or violated the spirit of the competition or the platform in any other way. The disqualifications are irrespective of your position on the leaderboard and completely at the discretion of Zindi.

Please refer to the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) and Terms of Use for additional rules that may apply to this competition. We reserve the right to update these rules at any time.

The final decision on the selection is made by Hackathon Judges and shall not be subject to dispute in a court of law. These decisions shall be final and binding for all Teams in the Event. Teams shall have no right to the justification for the decisions made by Hackathon Judges of any selection procedure.

Documentation

A README markdown file is required

It should cover:

• How to set up folders and where each file is saved
• Order in which to run code
• Explanations of features used
• Environment for the code to be run (conda environment.yml file or an environment.txt file)
• Hardware needed (e.g. Google Colab or the specifications of your local machine)
• Expected run time for each notebook. This will be useful to the review team for time and resource allocation.

Your code needs to run properly, code reviewers do not have time to debug code. If code does not run easily you will be bumped down the leaderboard.

Consequences of breaking any rules of the competition or submission guidelines:

• First offence: No prizes for 6 months and 2000 points will be removed from your profile (probation period). If you are caught cheating, all individuals involved in cheating will be disqualified from the challenge(s) you were caught in and you will be disqualified from winning any competitions for the next six months and 2000 points will be removed from your profile. If you have less than 2000 points to your profile your points will be set to 0.
• Second offence: Banned from the platform. If you are caught for a second time your Zindi account will be disabled and you will be disqualified from winning any competitions or Zindi points using any other account.
• Teams with individuals who are caught cheating will not be eligible to win prizes or points in the competition in which the cheating occurred, regardless of the individuals’ knowledge of or participation in the offence.
• Teams with individuals who have previously committed an offence will not be eligible for any prizes for any competitions during the 6-month probation period.

Monitoring of submissions

• We will review the top 10 solutions of every competition when the competition ends.
• We reserve the right to request code from any user at any time during a challenge. You will have 24 hours to submit your code following the rules for code review (see above). Zindi reserves the right not to explain our reasons for requesting code. If you do not submit your code within 24 hours you will be disqualified from winning any competitions or Zindi points for the next six months. If you fall under suspicion again and your code is requested and you fail to submit your code within 24 hours, your Zindi account will be disabled and you will be disqualified from winning any competitions or Zindi points with any other account.