Policies & Guidelines
Community standards, challenge and judging rules, and additional legal and compliance documents. For our core legal documents, see Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and IP Policy.
Challenge & Judging Guidelines
Last updated: July 2026
This document reflects InnoBee's current features and practices as of the date above. We update it regularly as the platform changes.
1. About These Guidelines
These Guidelines cover the practical mechanics of running, entering, and judging a challenge on InnoBee — a companion to the legal terms in our Terms of Service and the conduct expectations in our Community Guidelines and Intellectual Integrity Policy.
2. Creating a Challenge
A good challenge on InnoBee has: a clear problem statement, defined eligibility, transparent judging criteria published before submissions open, a realistic timeline, and a clearly stated prize or outcome.
2.1 Choosing a challenge type
InnoBee supports 40+ challenge types across clusters including Innovation Discovery, Product Development, Financial & Venture, Operational Excellence, Competitive & Recognition, Strategic & Disruptive, Social Impact, and Analytical & Assessment. Pick the type that matches your actual goal — for example, a Hackathon for rapid prototyping, a Venture Capital challenge for a structured investment pitch competition, or an Audit-type challenge for a structured evaluation process. Ask InnoBee Queen for a recommendation if you're unsure.
2.2 Setting judging criteria
Define specific, weighted criteria before launch (for example: Innovation 30%, Feasibility 25%, Market Potential 25%, Presentation 20%). Vague criteria ("best idea wins") lead to inconsistent judging and disputes. InnoBee Queen can help draft criteria appropriate to your challenge type.
2.3 Prize terms and escrow
Prize funds should be placed in escrow through the Platform before submissions open wherever possible — challenges with escrowed prizes are marked as such and generally attract higher-quality participation, since participants can trust the prize is real.
3. Submitting to a Challenge
Read the full challenge brief and judging criteria before starting work — submissions are evaluated against what was published, not against general quality alone. Submit original work consistent with our Intellectual Integrity Policy, and disclose AI assistance if the specific challenge requires it.
Submit before the deadline — late submissions are not accepted once a challenge closes, and there are no exceptions for technical issues on your end, so don't wait until the last few minutes.
4. Judging a Challenge
Judges are expected to: read/review the full submission (not just skim it), score strictly against the published criteria, write feedback specific enough for the participant to learn from, and disclose any conflict of interest before scoring begins — you may not judge a challenge you also submitted to.
4.1 Scoring methods
Depending on the challenge, judges may score using weighted-criteria rubrics or the TOPSIS multi-criteria ranking method. Both require judges to score every criterion, not just form an overall gut impression.
4.2 Blind and multi-round judging
Some challenges anonymize participant identity from judges (blind judging) or use multiple judging rounds. Follow the specific challenge's configuration — attempting to identify an anonymized participant is a violation of our Anti-Discrimination Policy's fairness requirements.
4.3 Queen AI consistency checks
InnoBee Queen may flag scoring outliers across a judging panel (for example, one judge scoring dramatically differently from the panel average) for the challenge creator's review. This is a consistency aid, not an override — human judges make the final call.
5. Sponsoring or Backing a Challenge
Sponsors can contribute to a challenge's prize pool or back a specific participant/team. Sponsorship on InnoBee is a contribution, not an equity purchase — see our Terms of Service, Section 8, for what this does and doesn't mean legally.
6. Disputing a Judging Outcome
If you believe a judging outcome was affected by a conflict of interest, discrimination, or a clear misapplication of the published criteria, contact support@innobee.buzz within 7 days of results being announced with specifics. General disagreement with a judge's subjective assessment within the published criteria is not itself grounds for a dispute.
7. A Note on Pitch Deck Challenges
The Pitch Deck challenge type works differently from most others: instead of a fixed submission deadline and a declared winner, it publishes to a persistent public page and stays open to ongoing sponsorship and investor interest. See the Pitch Deck-specific guidance provided within that creation flow for details once the feature is available.