1. Do I need to pay any money to register for the hackathon? No. You do not have to pay anything to anyone for this hackathon
2. Do I need to have any specific qualifications to be a participant for the hackathon? If you love to code, you are more than welcome to participate in the hackathon.
3. Do we need to have the entire idea fully working? The entire idea need not be fully implemented. However, the submission should be functional so that it can be reviewed by the judges.
4. Does one have to be online and available for the entire duration of the hackathon? No, one does not need to be logged in on HackerEarth or be online for the entire duration. You can develop the application on your local system based on the given themes and then submit it on HackerEarth, on the specific challenge page.
5. Since there is no specific technology mentioned, are there any restrictions on using number of pre-built libraries? Proposed solutions should ideally suit for deployment in Azure cloud platform.

The expected statistical solution for all the 6 themes is mentioned below:

• The tools can leverage open source/ custom libraries/ Application Program Interface (API) from cloud platforms.
• Azure and MS Tech stack continues to be the most preferred stack over which we would like the solutions to be built. Open source technologies can be used if Azure and MS Tech stack cannot solve the problem or if you do not have access to the above-mentioned stacks. You should, however, design the solutions in a way that it can easily be ported to EY tech stack and also provide a valid business reason during the evaluation for your decision to choose open source technology

Preferable technology stack is C#, .net and Python for Artificial Intelligence (AI)/ Machine Learning (ML). You are also free to use libraries that are not licensed under Affero General Public License (AGPL).

6. Do I need to give a demo for the product that I have built? If you want you can submit a small presentation or video that demos your submission, however, it's not mandatory, and only good to have. In case you are one of the winners, you might be invited to demo your application at a virtual event, details of which will be shared with sufficient advance notice.
7. A fully developed application needs to have a solid backend for data storage like SQL, SharePoint, etc. since its online, is it accepted to show only the prototype of it? Yes, it's absolutely fine to submit just the prototype. If you use any database like MySQL or PostgreSQL you can also submit a database dump along with your submission. However, you are allowed to submit just the prototype.
8. If it is a team submission, does that mean all team members will have access to work at the same time? Yes, all team members can login from their account and do application submission on HackerEarth.
9. Who will own the IP (Intellectual Property) Rights to the product that I have built? Participants agree that participating in the hackathon does not grant him/ her, the license (expressly, by implication, estoppel, or otherwise) or any right of ownership to the data and resources. The intellectual property of the participants' code belongs only to the EY organization.
10. How will I receive mentorship during the hackathon and how will it help me? As part of the hackathon, each one of you will be mentored by professionals from domains such as AI, RPA, Analytics and so on from EY GDS. The mentor will help you gain detailed insights on the problems and set clear expectations of the expected solutions on a real-time basis.
11. How will the mentoring activity work?

• Domain specific mentors will be assigned to each of the teams that are part of the Pre-finale
• EY GDS and HackerEarth will set up regular connects. Information of these sessions will be shared in due course.

Disclaimer: “This publication contains information in summary form and is therefore intended for general guidance only. It is not intended to be a substitute for detailed research or the exercise of professional judgment. Member firms of the global EY organization cannot accept responsibility for loss to any person relying on this article.”