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ACS News
The $20,000 2010 Alcatel-Lucent Broadband Challenge for the Sustainable Environment (the Eckermann-TJA Prize Competition)
The Telecommunications Society of Australia is delighted to announce that in the fourth annual round of the Eckermann-TJA Prize, it will be sponsored again by Alcatel-Lucent Australia, with total prize money of AU$20,000. The competition is known as the Alcatel-Lucent Broadband Challenge for the Sustainable Environment.
Prizes will be awarded to the best three papers offered by university students, based upon undergraduate or graduate projects they have carried out themselves, submitted to the Telecommunications Journal of Australia (TJA) by a deadline of 5 pm (Australian Eastern Summer Time) on Monday 15 November 2010. The best entries, including the winning papers, will be published in the February 2011 issue of TJA .
The Eckermann-TJA Prize of $5,000 will be awarded to the student authors of the winning paper, plus $10,000 to the university department in which the student authors carried out their project. Additional prizes of $3,000 and $2,000 will be awarded to the authors of the papers judged second and third in merit, respectively, out of those submitted to TJA by the above deadline.
An independent Judging Panel will be chaired by TJA’s Managing Editor, Dr Peter Gerrand. Panel members do not vote or provide ratings on entries in which they have any conflict of interest.
Conditions of Entry:
(1) Each paper submitted as an entry in this competition must describe original work carried out by the principal author(s), based upon projects carried out by them as university students (undergraduate or graduate) during 2010. It is permissible for an academic supervisor to be included as co-author (last in sequence), in return for assistance in presenting the paper, but all authors will be required to certify that the paper is based upon original work by the student authors alone, carried out during 2010.
(2) Each paper submitted must not have been previously published in a refereed publication, and should not exceed 6,000 words.
(3) Entries will be judged on the extent to which they demonstrate the tangible benefits that an innovative use of broadband communications technology can deliver in supporting a sustainable environment. For the purposes of the competition, broadband is defined as providing an always-on, low-latency network connection supporting data speeds in excess of 250 kbps over fixed or wireless networks.
(4) The Judging Panel will rate the submitted papers upon their merits in three categories, weighted equally: - Quality of the ideas: originality and plausibility of the proposed application of broadband technology to sustain some important feature of the environment.
- Presentation: quality of communication of the ideas, using both text and diagrams, via a well structured, well argued paper.
- Quantifiable benefit: the estimated benefit to the environment of applying the proposed ideas.
(5) The paper rated best overall will win the Eckermann-TJA Prize of AU$5,000 for the student author(s), and $10,000 for the university department in which they carried out the project on which their paper is based. Second and third prizes of $3,000 and $2,000 respectively will be available to the student authors of the papers rated second and third best. The Judging Panel will reserve the right to not award any or all of the three prizes if insufficient papers are found to have sufficient merit this year.
(6) The prize-winning papers, plus any other papers entered that are considered to have sufficient originality and merit, will be published in TJA during 2011.
(7) The Judging Panel reserves the right to reject any paper that it deems to be non-compliant with the rules of the Competition, in bad taste or otherwise inappropriate given the theme and objectives of the Competition. Any decisions made by the Judging Panel will be final and not subject to appeal.
(8) Any intellectual property vested in entries will remain the property of the contributor(s) submitting the entry. However, it is a condition of the Competition that the contributor(s) grant the Australian Computer Society (ACS), incorporating the activities of the Telecommunication Society of Australia (TSA), a non-exclusive licence to publish and distribute the paper in electronic, digital and print form worldwide, and an exclusive licence for 18 months to publish the paper in the Telecommunications Journal of Australia and/or on the ACS web site. A copy of the TJA Contributors’ Agreement can be obtained from TJA’s Managing Editor. Re-use of the contents of the paper for teaching and research purposes will be readily granted upon application to the Managing Editor, TJA.
(9) Entries should comprise the following elements:- a title (maximum 10 words);
- a brief Abstract (maximum 100 words) that provides an overview of the entry; such Abstracts would be used in citations, and with links on a web-site to help interested parties identify entries that may be of particular interest;
- the body of the entry (maximum 6,000 words) setting out more detailed explanations, supporting information, calculations and any other material pertinent to the entry, in a format complying with the TJA Guide to Authors. A signed copy of the TJA Contributor Agreement.
- A copy of the TJA Student Authors Certificate, signed by the authors and by the relevant Head of Department, vouching that the submitted paper is based upon a project carried out by the students as part of their studies during 2010 at the given university.
Note: Contributors are advised to send an email to TJA’s Managing Editor in advance of beginning to write their papers, to receive a copy of the TJA Guide to Authors, the TJA Contributor Agreement and a TJA Student Authors Certificate by return email.
(10) Close relatives of members of the Judging Panel and officials of the ACS-TSA are not eligible to enter the Competition.
(11) A decision will be made and winners, if any, notified before the publication of the relevant issue of TJA in first half of 2010.
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