This is an Ideation Challenge with a guaranteed award for at least one submitted solution.

Description

BACKGROUND

Archaeological evidences and finds, not properly detected and identified during the preliminary phase of a construction project, could lead to serious consequences during the excavation activities, such as delays to project timelines, costly redesign works or, even, bringing the entire construction site activities to a halt. These situations can be properly managed in advance, adopting effective and efficient techniques and methods to detect archaeological finds and to transform discoveries into opportunities to add value to the project.

In compliance with local legislation, Enel Green Power carries out archaeological investigations to evaluate and manage this task, combining traditional and innovative technology systems, in order to detect archaeological finds in an early stage of the construction project, and to identify areas where further detailed investigations are needed.

Archaeological finds search and survey, traditionally carried out by expert personnel, represent a considerable effort in terms of time, and they can be not compatible with project timelines, in particular when they are carried out over large areas of hundreds or thousands of hectares.

Other more innovative approaches, like the Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR), cannot perform a detailed detection of small objects, of a few centimeters in size, located on the surface or partially buried spread on large areas with varying vegetation and soil.

THE CHALLENGE

Enel Green Power (EGP) is looking for non-destructive techniques to automatically detect small shallow archaeological finds (e.g. potsherds, lithic tools, bones, etc.) scattered in large areas, in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness of archaeological surveys, carried out during the preliminary phases of construction projects, to preserve the historical and cultural heritage.

Submissions should address the following Solution Requirements.

The proposed solution must:

• automatically detect different small archaeological finds (e.g. potsherds, lithic tools, bones, etc.). These small archaeological finds are characterized by different dimensions (starting from 7 mm and up to 10 cm) and they could be partially buried;
• detect different materials like pottery, stone, wood, bone, metal or any combination of them;
• be capable of analyzing thousands of hectares of area in a reduced amount of time compared with conventional and traditional techniques;
• be based on non-destructive techniques and not cause any changes and/or damage to the site or archaeological finds.

 Moreover, the proposed solution should: 

• be able to detect archaeological finds independently from weather conditions;
• be adaptable to different types of landscapes like, but not only, desertic areas and zones with vegetation;
• be able to analyze different type of soils like, but not limited to, clay, sand and silt.

Commercial Ground Penetration Radars (GPR) were already tested without successful results for the detection of small objects, located on the surface or partially buried spread on large areas with varying vegetation and soil. According to the above, this solution will not be considered for the present challenge.

PROJECT DELIVERABLES

The submitted proposal should include the following:

• Detailed description of the proposed method and/or technique, including (but not limited to):
  • advantages and weaknesses of the proposed solution;
  • information about the accuracy in terms of dimension and materials of archeological finds detectable and time required for the surveys execution (e.g. minimum detectable archaeological finds’ size, maximum underground depth reached, etc.);
  • evidence or calculated esteem of detection probability, if applicable.
  • information about its applicability (i.e. type of areas, type of soils, weather conditions)
• Data, case studies, patent and journal references or any additional material that supports the proposed solution.

The proposal should not include any personal identifying information (name, username, company, address, phone, email, personal website, resume, etc.) or any information the Solvers may consider as their Intellectual Property they do not want to share.

Challenge rules

All proposers are invited to read carefully the challenge and the Regulation of this challenge, attached below in the Attachments section, before submitting a solution.

By submitting a solution they automatically accept the attached Regulations other than the Terms of Use of this platform.

Explain your proposal clearly and attach documents if needed (max 5 files, 25MB total size).

ELIGIBILITY

The employees of the Enel Group who are involved in the organization and management of the Competition or admitted to the Open Innovability Portal back office, as well as their spouses or partners and their relatives up to the fourth degree, are not eligible for participation in this Challenge.

Also, employees of Enel Green Power S.p.A. who have worked in the technical sector of the archaeological surveys field and that work, at the moment of the competition, on the archaeological automatic survey technologies activities, or their spouses, partners or any of their relatives up to the fourth grade determined according to Italian law are not eligible for the participation to this Challenge.

Without prejudice to the article 5.5 of the Terms of Use, the obligation to grant the IP rights set in this article does not apply if the winning solution is proposed by an employee of an Enel company, unless the employee is the owner of the solution according to the relevant national law.

CHALLENGE, AWARD, IP RIGHTS

This is an Ideation Challenge, which has the following unique features:

• There is a guaranteed award for at least one solution. The awards will be paid to the best submission(s) as solely determined by the Seeker. The total payout will be $15,000. In case of multiple awarded solutions (maximum eleven (11)), there will be at least one submission receiving an award no smaller than $5,000, while the others won’t be smaller than $1,000.
• The Solvers are not required to transfer exclusive intellectual property rights to the Seeker. Rather, by submitting a proposal, the Solver grants to the Seeker a royalty-free, perpetual, and non-exclusive license to use any information included in this proposal, including for promotional purposes.

DEADLINE

----DEADLINE EXTENDED UNTIL JUNE 12th, 2020----

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (Central European Time) on June 12th, 2020.

Late submissions will not be considered.

Specific regulation in the CSA attached at the bottom of this page.

What happens next?

After the Challenge deadline, the Seeker will complete the review process and make a decision with regards to the Winning Solution(s). All Solvers that submit a proposal will be notified on the status of their submissions. Furthermore, since this is an ideation challenge, Solvers will only receive an high level evaluation of each submission.

Enel will evaluate the proposal using the following criteria:

• Overall scientific and technical feasibility of the proposed solution;
• Economic potential of concept (e.g. Total Cost of Ownership);
• Business potential for Enel;
• Novelty and creativity;
• Potential for proprietary position (i.e., is the technology novel or protectable);
• User’s capabilities and related experience;
• Realism of the proposed solution;
• Maturity level of the proposal.

In case the reward includes “Collaboration with Enel”, once suitable solution/s have been identified, Enel will reserve the opportunity to start a collaboration, by way of example, all or part of the following activities:

• Test execution;
• Supply of prototypes (if an equipment);
• Installation and site tests;
• Follow up and monitoring of the proposed idea behavior.

Upon completion of the evaluation, you will receive feedback.

In case of success, an Enel contact person will get in touch with you to discuss the next steps.

The final award for this Challenge is contingent upon satisfactory completion of the verification process, including acceptance of the Challenge-Specific Agreement (CSA) that is the regulation for this Challenge.

The verification process includes obtaining the following from the Solver: signed affidavit (based on the CSA), employer waiver (if applicable), and proof of identify.

ABOUT INNOCENTIVE

InnoCentive collaborates with Enel to manage this challenge.

InnoCentive is the global innovation marketplace where creative minds solve some of the world's most important problems for cash awards up to $1 million. Commercial, governmental and humanitarian organizations engage with InnoCentive to solve problems that can impact humankind in areas ranging from the environment to medical advancements.