D'Hub Challenges

1.1 A priority goal of the Ministry of Digital Transformation (MDT) is to build a digital ecosystem within which end-to-end services and transactions can be conducted and completed by citizens through the digitalisation and integration of appropriate services provided to the public, making their interactions with government, seamless and efficient. Government is faced with several challenges in trying to achieve these desired outcomes, including:

• Developing the wide array of required business solutions with the limited ICT resources available across Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
• Difficulties in attracting and retaining the required digital competencies within the various ICT Divisions and Departments across the public service to meet existing and known technology demands.
• Inadequate information on the specific needs of smaller segments of society and therefore the inability to meet niche needs, as for example those of elderly diabetics.

1.2 The Developers’ Hub branded “D’Hub” is an initiative that supports the advancement of these objectives. It involves attracting individual developers and small development teams across the national community to partner and work with the public sector in creating innovative digital solutions to meet the service delivery needs of the public sector, citizens and businesses. It is a digital ecosystem inclusive of virtual platforms and physical spaces, which encourages, enables, supports, and hosts the collaborative development of open-source and open standards software programs and applications of specific interest to the Government, thereby facilitating improved ease of access to services and the creation of new e-services. Developers will benefit significantly on becoming members of the Developers’ Hub by virtue of a wide range of opportunities and support that they will receive through this arrangement, including technical training, digital tools, mentorship and outsourced work.

1.3  In addition to MDT assigning and contracting software development work to members of the Developers’ Hub, developers will soon be able to make their independent contributions to the development effort. The collective experience, capability and competency of the developers who become part of the D’Hub will allow them to identify and develop both niche and major digital solutions to meet the needs of citizens. Through a targeted and cohesive collaboration, the speed of solution development will be expanded significantly beyond what a single team of government or vendor developers are able to achieve on their own.

2.1 The Developer’s Hub Challenge Series is a digital innovation contest looking for innovative ideas, business models and digital solutions to contribute to Trinidad and Tobago’s Vision 2030. Contests are being promoted by the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (GoRTT) and individual contests are expected to take place over a three-year period, with the first contest starting in July, 2023.

2.2 The Challenge Series is an opportunity for creative, innovative and committed problem solvers to propose and implement innovative digital solutions and business ideas that aim at addressing important public sector, social, economic, and environmental gaps and problems. Through creativity, innovation, technology and partnerships, this mechanism can help transform e-service delivery by the public sector of Trinidad and Tobago.

2.3 The D’Hub Challenge Series comprises two parts: 

Part 1 – The Concept Challenge 

Developers and/or teams of developers will be invited to outline their innovative solutions to identified challenges, reflecting the needs of government and/or society. A maximum of three (3) awardees per Challenge can qualify to develop their proposed solution into a Proof of Concept (POC). It is possible however that none of the submissions are deemed suitable for selection to proceed. Successful developers/teams of developers for each Concept Challenge will be awarded TT$50,000.00 to develop their POC. The award will be made in accordance with the contract, upon successful completion of a pitch / presentation (see Part 2 below)

Part 2 –  The Implementation Challenge

Based on the developed and presented POCs, if one of the developers/teams of developers for each challenge is judged the winner, that developer/team of developers will be asked to undertake the development and implementation of their POC into a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). An Award of TT$350,000.00 will be made for development and implementation of the MVP, upon completion of the individual milestones defined in the contract.

3.1 A Challenge refers to a problem offered by a public sector organization or community (the Challenge Owner) that can be solved in an innovative way, using digital technologies. Challenges are solved with a distinctive focus on experimentation, collaboration and co-creation between challenge owners and solution developers. In this context, innovative digital solution refers to a problem solution which is driven by emerging digital technologies, availability of data and new approaches as opposed to simply procuring and configuring or adapting an existing solution.

3.2 Responsibilities of the challenge owners – MDAs and Communities:

• Challenge owners identify a problem and submit a challenge application to the Challenge series, explaining the problem, providing data to support the problem to be solved and identifying the impact that it can have on performance.
• Challenge owners commit to providing as much information about the problem as possible.
• Challenge owners participate in the developers’ selection process.
• Challenge owners cooperate and provide the resources indicted in their application to the developers/team of developers.

4.1 The official channel of the D’Hub Challenge is the D’Hub website https://dhub.mdt.gov.tt/. Information, guidelines, and the application form can be found at  https://dhub.mdt.gov.tt/about-dhub-challenges/. Applicants will be invited to submit proposals via an online application form linked to the website. At this time, the application form is not live and online, however a copy of the form including the fields that applicants will be required to complete is appended to this document (see Appendix I). Members of the Hub will be notified when the online application form goes live, prior to applications being submitted.

4.2 Inquiries concerning the Challenge can be sent via e-mail to dhub-info@gov.tt. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) have been developed to help applicants with general questions. These will be published on the website on launch of the first Challenge. Consultations or requests for clarification which are not made through the channel indicated above will not be accepted. The Ministry of Digital Transformation (MDT)/iGovTT reserves the right not to respond or partially respond to inquiries not relevant to the objectives of the Call for Solutions.

4.3 An Information Session will be held prior to the submission date to address queries from potential applicants. MDT/iGovTT is expected to hold this Information Session with potential applicants to discuss the Developers’ Hub Challenge, explain why persons should apply, and clarify any questions that  potential applicants may have. Information on the date and time of this session will be published on the website.

5.1 Key Dates 

*Dates are targets and may be subject to change

5.2 Submission Deadline Dates are mandatory and must be met to move to the next stage of the Series. At the close of the Call for Solutions, applications will no longer be accepted. MDT/iGovTT reserves the right to extend deadline dates. If this should happen, the changes will be published on the website and communicated through print and social media.

6.1 The Challenge Series will be widely publicized, and an opportunity will be provided for developers to submit their responses to the defined need or their idea for a potential solution in a structured format via an online application form which will be published on the website. (See Appendix I for a copy of the Application Form).

6.2 At the first stage, developers / teams of developers will compete for a Concept Award. This award will allow their proposed solution to be developed into a POC for evaluation and review by an Adjudication Committee which will include targeted users and/or beneficiaries.

6.3 Initially, the list of submissions will be reviewed for conformity with the eligibility criteria for participants (see section 7 below). The Adjudication Committee will then evaluate the eligible submissions against  predefined evaluation criteria. These criteria are outlined in Section 9 below. The Adjudication Committee will determine if any of the submissions qualify to proceed to the POC Stage.

6.4 For each challenge, up to three developers / teams of developers that best meet the evaluation criteria will qualify to take their ideas to the POC stage. The Concept Awards will be issued after the POC is developed and presented at a Pitching Session that will be organized by MDT/iGovTT. With the intended implementation of five solutions in the first year, a maximum of 15 proposals that best meet the evaluation criteria will be selected for Concept Awards.

6.5 At the second stage, based on the POCs developed by Concept Award winners (see point 6.2 above) the Implementation Award winners will be selected.

6.6 For each challenge, one developer/ team of developers will be selected to develop a digital innovation MVP, based on their POC and solution pitch. The Adjudication Committee will evaluate POC submissions using the predefined evaluation criteria (as outlined in section 9 below) and a pitching session will be organised for the developers / teams of developers to present their solutions. Participation in these pitching sessions will be mandatory to be considered for an Implementation Award.

6.7 With the intended implementation of 5 solutions in the first challenge series, no more than 5 individual developers/ teams of developers (one per category) may be chosen for an Implementation Award.

6.8 Finalists at each stage of the Challenge Series and the eventual winner will be notified by telephone and/or email. If a potential winner does not respond within 5 days from the first notification attempt, the potential winner will be disqualified, and may be replaced with a qualified alternate.  With respect to notification by telephone, such notification will be deemed given when the potential winner engages in a live conversation with an MDT/iGovTT representative or when a message is left on the potential winner’s voicemail service or answering machine by MDT/iGovTT, whichever occurs first.

7.1 To be eligible to participate in the D’Hub Challenge Series, Participants must satisfy all of the following requirements:

• Be a citizen of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
• Be a legal resident of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
• Be domiciled in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
• Must be a minimum of 18 years of age as at the date of the launch of the Challenge
• Must be a registered member of the Developers’ Hub
• Must be an individual or ateam comprising no more than six persons who individually meet the specific requirements defined above

*In some cases, a maximum of 3 developers / teams of developers may be chosen for Awards, and in others no developers may be awarded, if the submissions are not considered appropriate or fit for purpose.

7.2 Employees, interns, contractors, and office-holders of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, iGovTT and partner organizations, affiliates, and their respective directors, officers, employees, advertising and promotion agencies, representatives, and agents (“Contest Entities”), and members of the Contest Entities and their immediate families (parents, siblings, children, spouses, and life partners of each, regardless of where they live) and members of the households (whether related or not) of such employees, officers and directors are ineligible to participate.

7.3 MDT/iGovTT reserves the right to verify eligibility and to adjudicate any dispute at any time.

7.4 Applicants cannot participate in more than 2 Challenges, and for each challenge they can only make one submission.

7.5 If a participant enters as a team, the team must appoint and authorize one individual to function as its representative. The representative and each team member must meet all the eligibility requirements.

7.6 Participants, selected finalists or winners who do not deliver the requested documents, submit an incomplete application, and/or falsify data submitted can be disqualified from the contest, at any time and lose the ability to receive an award

8.1 Submissions must meet the following requirements:

1. The application (and all submitted documentation) must be in English.
2. It must not be a previously submitted proposal.
3. Content must not be derogatory, offensive, threatening, defamatory, disparaging, libellous or contain any content that is inappropriate, indecent, sexual, profane, indecent, torturous, slanderous, discriminatory in any way, or that promotes hatred or harm against any group or person, or otherwise does not comply with the theme and spirit of the Contest; such determinations shall be at MDT/iGovTT’s
4. It must not contain content, material or any element that is unlawful or otherwise in violation of or contrary to all applicable laws.
5. It must not contain any content, material or element that displays any third-party advertising, slogan, logo, trademark, or otherwise indicates a sponsorship or endorsement by a third party, commercial entity, or that is not within the spirit of the Contest, as determined by MDT/iGovTT, in its discretion.
6. It must be an original, unpublished work that does not contain, incorporate or otherwise use any content, material or element that is owned by a third party or entity.
7. It cannot contain any content, element, or material that violates a third party’s publicity, privacy, or intellectual property rights.

8.2 Submissions will be considered void if they are in whole or part illegible, incomplete, damaged, altered, counterfeit, obtained through fraud, or late. All submissions will be deemed made by the authorized account holder of the email address submitted at the time of submission, and the potential finalists/winner may be required to show proof of being the authorized account holder for that email address. The “authorized account holder” is the natural person assigned to an email address by an Internet service provider, online service provider, or other organization responsible for assigning the email address for the domain.

8.3 During the Challenge Series, its agents and/or the Adjudication Committee will evaluate each Submission to ensure that it meets the eligibility requirements. MDT/iGovTT reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any applicant whose submission does not meet the eligibility requirements.

9.1 As indicated previously, the D’Hub Challenge Series comprises two stages of evaluation:

• The first stage will evaluate initial submissions to the selected challenges and will result in the identification of Concept Award Winners.

• The second stage will evaluate POCs and will result in the identification of Implementation Award winners.

9.2 Concept Awards Evaluation Criteria

9.3 The proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria by giving a score in the range of 0-5. An explanation for each score between 0-5 is provided below. Each criterion will be evaluated with a single integer. Final evaluation will be the sum of scores for the three criteria.

9.4 Implementation Awards Evaluation Criteria

9.5 The POC’s will be evaluated according to the following criteria by giving a concrete score in the range of 0-5. An explanation for each score in this range, is provided below. POC’s are going to be evaluated in four categories (Alignment, Progress, Pitch & Challenge Specific Criteria) by assigning a concrete mark in each of the category.

9.6 Evaluation of challenge-specific criteria will depend on the specific criteria developed for each challenge in the requirements specifications.  A score within the range of 0-5 can be assigned based on the performance of the developers or developer’s team in meeting those specific criteria. Challenge specific criteria will be developed subsequent to the challenge selection process or be chosen from MDT’s predefined list of priorities, if applicable, including the following:

• Be enabled by the introduction of the Interoperability Solution
• Improves the utilization and utility of the National e-Identifier
• Be built on open source software in accordance with open standards
• Will likely be a mobile application but other types of solutions may be requested

10.1 In selecting Judges MDT/iGovTT will aim for a diverse Adjudication Committee that represents various perspectives, including academia, NGO’s, government officials, and other industry experts. This diversity will enrich the evaluation process by bringing different insights, experiences, and viewpoints to the evaluation process.

11.1 The selected Concept Award winners and Implementation Award winners will be invited to sign contractual agreements.

Once the award winners are announced, MDT/iGovTT will engage the developers / teams of developers to execute agreements for the POC or MVP development processes. These agreements will determine the terms of the development processes, including key milestones, performance measurement, and Intellectual Property (IP) matters.

11.2 Among other duties, finalists and winners, must agree to learn and apply knowledge gained in the process, participate in the various initiatives provided by D’Hub and allow GoRTT (MDT/iGovTT and its partners) to utilize their name and/or likeness, for advertising and promotional purposes, without additional compensation, unless prohibited by law.

12.1 The D’Hub aims to enhance the innovative and creative capacity of developers participating in the challenge series, including supporting their ability to pursue further business opportunities. Simultaneously, the D’Hub Challenge series aims to facilitate innovation and capacity building in the public sector of Trinidad and Tobago, by providing various institutions / bodies with concepts and solutions that can enable them to be more effective and better serve the public.

12.2 Due to these objectives, the following terms of IP ownership will apply:

• By submitting an application for the D’Hub Challenge Series, applicants affirm that they own or have the right to use the intellectual property in their submission for the purpose of the submission.
• Participants of the D’Hub Challenge Series will retain ownership of the intellectual property rights for their solutions. Participants will therefore be able to develop their solution further, modify and sell it.  if they so choose. 
• Participants of the D’hub Challenge Series must also agree to grant the GoRTT (MDT/iGovTT) a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, publicly perform, publicly display, and create derivative works from the applicants’ submissions. 

Additional issues concerning IP can be discussed when signing agreements

13.1 Training Opportunities will either be provided specifically in response to perceived needs and will become available on becoming a member of the Developers’ Hub.

13.2 The developers and teams will participate in training workshops on the dates listed in the Timeline, to receive training in relevant skills.

13.3 Role of iGovTT in supporting the Challenge Series

 13.3.1 Support for Challenge Owners:

• Work with Challenge Owners to understand the D’Hub Challenge inclusive of its co-creation model
• Assist Challenge Owners towards clearly defining scope of Challenge and Problem Statement.
• Ensure Challenge Owners are aware of the critical factors for success and give relevant guidance to achieve this.

13.3.2 Support for Developers:

• Deliver Workshop on Intellectual Property
• Deliver Workshop on Marketing/Presentations/Tell your story
• Supply guidelines for Software Development Practices
• Supply templates for Requirements Documentation
• Guidelines for Code Documentation
• Guidance on Project Management and Task Planning including adoption ofAgile Methodologies
• Guidance and use of GitLab
• Guidance on UI/UX
• Guidance on Testing of Code
• Be available for and provide advice at Dry run of POC Pitches
• Monthly reviews of progress/milestones for MVP Development stage

Mentorship Program: schedule accessible via appointments for 30-minute segments, per week

14.1 Challenge refers to a problem offered by a public sector organization (a challenge owner) that could be solved in an innovative way using digital technologies. Challenges are to be solved with a distinctive focus on experimentation and collaboration between challenge owners and solution developers.  

14.2 Innovation/innovative digital solution refers to a digital solution to a problem which is driven by emerging digital technologies, availability of data, and is based on change of approach (from simply procuring an existing solution to experimentation and co-creation).

14.3 Challenge owner refers to a public sector organization which formulates a particular challenge and co-creates with selected developer(s) in the implementation of the innovation.

14.4 Developer refers to an individual or a team of developers, who develop a concept of the innovation, or the innovation itself, aimed at solving the challenge.

14.5 Minimum Viable Product: 

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a basic version of a product that contains enough features and functionalities to satisfy early users and validate the core concept. It is a fundamental part of agile development approaches, allowing development teams to quickly test their assumptions and gather feedback from real users with minimal investment.

For the purposes of the Challenge Series, an MVP shall be a working piece of software that includes and/or speaks to core features, usability, functionality validation, scalability, data collection and testing to ensure fit and feasibility for the use case and organizational needs outlined in the specific challenge.

14.6 Proof of Concept:

A proof of concept (POC) is a prototype that is developed to validate the feasibility and viability of a concept, idea, or technology. It is a preliminary stage in the development process, designed to determine whether a concept can be practically implemented and if it can deliver the intended results. The analysis and feedback from the POC will assist in making educated decisions regarding the project’s future, such as whether to proceed with full development, make changes, or abandon the concept entirely.

For the purposes of this Challenge Series, a POC shall be a software prototype that includes a clear objective, demonstration of some core functionalities and features, scope and constraints, validation, analysis and evaluation together with associated documentation and artifacts which can include PPT, PDF, videos, and/or simulations as needed to support the concept’s validity and feasibility and the development approach for the specific challenge.

15.1 Participation in this Challenge implies the acceptance of these Guidelines and the Terms of Use of the D’Hub website on which the Application Form is hosted. Detailed Terms and Conditions will be provided on the website in upcoming weeks, prior to the deadline for submissions.

15.2 Applicants will be expected to read and accept these Terms and Conditions, the Guidelines and the Terms of Use of the website prior to registering as a user and submitting a proposal via the online Application Form.

NOTICE AS TO DISCLAIMERS AND RESERVATION OF RIGHTS

The Ministry of Digital Transformation/iGovTT reserves the right to eliminate participants, selected finalists or winners, at any stage of the Challenge Series, and this decision shall be final and binding. The Ministry of Digital Transformation/iGovTT may search for publicly available information regarding participants, and may seek to verify details referenced in the application. The Ministry of Digital Transformation/iGovTT reserves the right to cancel or postpone the challenge at any time. All decisions of the Ministry of Digital Transformation/iGovTT are binding, with no process for appeal. Participants that submit content that is offensive, illegal and those that disparage the Ministry of Digital Transformation/iGovTT, sponsors or partners will be eliminated. The Ministry of Digital Transformation/iGovTT will not consider participants who are ineligible to participate in MDT/iGovTT or IDB projects or contracting under their integrity policies and sanctions protocol. Participants must attest that their submission is original, and they are not infringing on any copyrights or other intellectual property. MDT reserves the right to disseminate and share the identity of the applicants, finalists and winner proposals and any other information deemed relevant. These terms and conditions may be updated at any time and will be made available online to all participants.

Application Form

*NB: The following is a list of fields that applicants would be expected to complete when applying online for the D’Hub Challenge Series. At this time, the application form is not yet live. Members of the Hub will be notified when the application form goes live, and applications are being accepted

1. Select a challenge:
2. Individual name / Team name:
3. Contact email address (Individual or Team Representative) :
4. Individual Expertise / Team Expertise (Describe your individual expertise in the field or your team’s expertise in the field):
5. Why do you want to participate in the D’Hub Challenge?:
6. Solution description (detailed description of the solution and explanation how it meets the needs and issues identified in the challenge description):
7. Solution functionality (what are the concrete functions of the proposed solution and how they meet the needs and issues identified in the challenge description, how well is the solution tailored to future extensibility):
8. Further solution development (what is the future vision of the proposed solution, how it could go beyond the needs and issues identified in the challenge description):
9. Provide the solution development plan:
10. Provide potential risks of the project, allocated resources and ways to manage them:
11. Insert a link to your solution documentation, presentation or other relevant material (if any exists):
12. Additional information (link to your website, videos or other resources, if applicable):
13. How did you find out about the D’Hub Challenge?: