iLobby Policy Process Challenge

About the Challenge Creator 

iLobby is an online platform that connects you with top lobbyists in the country to get the political change that you want. Lobbying is effective but expensive and has been out of the reach of most voters, until now. We make lobbying affordable for voters and small business by sharing the costs through crowd-funding. It’s simple, effective and non-partisan. You might ask, "Why do I need a lobbyist?"

Because lobbyists know the issues; they understand the political landscape in D.C. and State capitols and they know how to get things done, saving you valuable time and frustration.

By using their strategic expertise you gain the advantage of working within the system with your Congressman, their staff and other constituents. After all, it's all about relationships.

So, if you are concerned about where our country is going, or feel that your Representative is out of touch and doesn't understand you or represent the key issues that matter to you, then try something different.

We empower you to make change on issues and laws that matter to you, your business and your community. We do one thing. We help you persuade better. So extend your political reach and keep things simple.

OVERVIEW 

Are you fed up with politics as usual? Do you find your life has been turned upside down and you are uncertain of your future? Do you feel like you no longer trust the government or its leaders? Do you think we have failed in terms of solving the big problems like immigration, gun violence, cyber security, overregulation, climate change, inefficient healthcare and taxation?

THE PROBLEM

What if there was a way for you to help solve the problems at the federal state or even the local level? What if there was a way for you to make real change using a basket of tools we already have?

We know we have petitions, protests and town halls at our disposal. We know we have the first amendment. But we also have a new force, the power and intelligence of the crowd and massive technological advancements.

Just think. If we could harness you, your commonsense ideas and the technology in your living room kitchen or office we could begin to make changes that make sense to regular folks, to, the silent majority.

THE OPPORTUNITY 

My name is John Thibault I am the founder and CEO of iLobby and the author of "How to Change a Law." I have been thinking about this problem for a long time. I don't have all the answers.

I have personally seen how corporations, special interests and lobbyists are able to get the things that they want and yet regular folks often do not. It's an incredibly frustrating, exhausting and time-consuming process to change a law or make real policy changes on complex problems that we all face.

But what if it didn't have to be?

I've also seen how ordinary citizens have been able to get laws made or changed and even a 10-year-old girl got a law passed. So it can be done.

That's what this challenge is all about.

The ILobby platform is an attempt to solve the policy problems at all level of government and to work within the system to encourage policy debate and help our leaders shape our future and ultimately the destiny of our children.

But I feel it doesn't go far enough and so I am looking to you for your ideas, imagination, inspiration, intelligence, creativity, fun spirit and deep knowledge to help shape a public policy platform for the future that anyone can use.

This is your opportunity to put your thinking cap on and make a contribution by joining this challenge.

What I want to ask is how do we energize and overcome the problem of civic engagement and have people get excited by the possibilities of what can be done?

No idea is too crazy, no input is without merit. Every idea counts but in the end we want to be able to find something that engages the citizenry in active public policy participation.

Every step of the way you can ask yourself, how would a civil society act?

I believe that there are solutions to every problem and I think this is a worthy problem that needs to be addressed.

I am not asking you to solve the specific policy problems I've outlined above like immigration, taxes, defense, healthcare or even crime in your city. What I'm looking for is a framework for a global platform that works for everybody in the existing environment that would allow us to come up with the best solutions to complex problems and then inform our leaders in an intelligent way so that they can sponsor bills in the legislative bodies of which they are members.

This is not about candidates. This is not about elections. This is simply about issues and ideas.

If the politicians are tapped out and don't have all the answers and are overwhelmed by the volume of work and the complexity of new issues that face them then it's time for individuals in the country and around the world to step forward with solutions that will help them along.

This is your chance to set the stage for a collaborative communications platform or a dialogue that is ongoing between our elected leaders and us.

So I hope you join in. And give us your best ideas. Join this challenge. It's simple - five pages, five sections, $500. What is democracy worth to you?

We can either succeed together as a nation and solve some of these fast changing issues facing our world and get a handle on them so that we can truly make progress as a tribe, a nation, or a planet.

Or we can sit back and do nothing, Protest, cross our fingers and hope that our elected leaders will take care of us.

What the government does affects every aspect of our lives in every business, community, factory, farm, school and street. And it will continue to affect us for years to come.

Let's make sure we have a say in how things get done.

THE CHALLENGE BREAKTHROUGH 

• Change Democracy around the world 
• Empower people to effect change in the way laws are developed and changed
• Disrupt traditional law vetting process 
• Streamline the lawmaking process
• ​An incentive contest that rewards citizen participation in policy
• A place where citizens have a voice and lawmakers take the proposals seriously
• A system that creates better responsiveness to citizens from lawmakers
• A framework that defines what you think is the ideal solution 

What You Can Do To Cause A Breakthrough

1. Click "Follow the Challenge" above to be notified of any status updates to the challenge.
2. Click "Yes Sign Me Up!" above to register for the challenge. You will be notified of any status updates and be able to create an entry to the challenge when it opens.
3. Click on the "Share" button or social media icons above to share this challenge with your friends, your family, or anyone you know who has a passion for discovery.
4. Leave a comment in our Comments Thread to join the conversation, ask questions or connect with other innovators.

How to Win the Challenge :

The winning innovator(s)/team will be judged on creating a framework, strategy or plan to optimize the iLobby platform to enhance collaboration among citizens and lawmakers.  

The strategy/plan will be judged on:

• Feasibility 
• Novelty
• Implementation Plan 
• System must be usable across all U.S. districts 

The strategy/plan must address: 

• How users will be able to take on a policy challenge and create a solution in 180 days or less
• How users will access lawmakers on the platform to get a draft bill sponsored on the House (or legislative) floor
• Identify the right districts matched to committee members for a bill
• The strategy or framework should focus on policy issues, not candidates
• How to encourage voters to take consistent policy action and become engaged in the publi policy making process
• The proposed framework should encourage and incentivize civic engagement
• Build a constituent tribe of 20,000 voters who have debated and voted on a proposed bill
• Get media attention for the top 3 solutions

Submission Requirements:

Detail of your strategy/plan can be in one the following formats:

• A five page written document in the form of a PDF file

  • Executive summary

  • What's your plan

  • How it works

  • Why it's better than what's out there

  • Conclusion

• A video less than five minutes long 
• An illustration or infographic
• A link to a conceptually designed website (concept, not full model)  

Our only restrictions are:

• This challenge is not looking for a specific policy solution to any one issue but rather a framework that can address the policymaking process
• You may submit as many ideas as you'd like to increase your chances of winning.

Judging Criteria

Each submission will be scored against the below criteria:

Who can participate: The Challenge is open to all individuals but you must comply with all the terms of the Challenge as defined in the Challenge-Specific Agreement.

Selection of Winner:  The winner will be selected based on the criteria above and the number of votes they received. The winner will be announced on July 1, 2017.

Voting: Registered users of the HeroX/iLobby Policy Challenge may vote once.

Registration and Submissions:

All individual and team submissions must be submitted online on or before midnight, April 1, 2017. No submissions will be accepted after this time. Incomplete submissions will not be accepted. All submissions must be received online, via the Challenge website.

Written proposals are limited to 5 page maximum. Minimum margins are one inch. Font must be minimum 12 pt, double-spaced (any text in tables and figures may be as small as 9 pt)

Proposals must be uploaded as a single unlocked PDF document, 20 MB maximum. Embedded hyperlinks to external content, such as videos or animations  or anything else that might help the judging panel evaluate the entry, are allowed. However, there is no guarantee that judges will view external content, so the proposal document itself must stand on its own.

Challenge Guidelines are subject to change. Registered competitors will receive notification when changes are made, however, we highly encourage you to visit the Challenge Site often to review updates.

Communication: English is the official language for submissions, proposals, presentations, and all communications.

Eligibility: The Challenge is open to all individuals or groups of individuals who are over the age of majority.

While companies, firms, and individual professionals are welcome and encouraged to participate, the Challenge is an amateur competition. The Challenge is not soliciting expert and/or professional opinions but rather, simply soliciting ideas and advice. Any ideas that may be acted on in the future will first be fully vetted and deemed reasonable by iLobby

No individual may be a member of more than one team. Participation is void wherever restricted or prohibited by law.

iLobby reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to disqualify any participant who is (i) found to be tampering with the entry process or with the operation and administration of the Challenge; (ii) acting in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner, or with the intent to disrupt or undermine the legitimate operation of the Challenge; (iii) or in violation of the Challenge Rules.

Automated entries or votes sent via bots will be disqualified. Automated and/or repetitive electronic submissions (including but not limited to entries made using any script, macro, bot or contest service) will be automatically disqualified and transmissions from these or related accounts may be blocked. iLobby reserves the right to seek damages and other remedies from any such entrant to the fullest extent permitted by law, including but not limited to criminal prosecution.

Participants must comply with these Challenge Rules. Participants will be deemed to have received, understood and agreed to these Challenge Rules through their participation in this Challenge.

No purchase or payment of any kind is necessary to enter or win the competition.

Prize Monies: Individuals and teams are solely responsible for any taxes that they might incur from their prize money.

Licensing and Copyright: Any submission submitted in connection to the Challenge must be an original work created by the participant or the participant team members and the participants must have all necessary rights in and to the submission.

The submission must not infringe upon or violate any laws or any third party rights, including, but not limited to, copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, privacy, publicity or confidentiality rights or other proprietary or contractual rights and must not include material that is libelous, defamatory, or tortious.

Participants must obtain, and make available to iLobby upon iLobby’s request, all necessary permissions, licenses, releases, waivers of moral rights and other approvals from third parties necessary for iLobby to use and exploit the submission, in whole or in part, including without limitation, to reproduce, make derivatives, edit, modify, translate, distribute, transmit, publish, license and broadcast the submission worldwide, by any means.

Participants must assign all of their rights in the submission and the intellectual property embodied therein, to iLobby.

Participants must keep confidential the data and other information disclosed by iLobby and the contents of participants' submissions, during the Challenge and thereafter, unless iLobby authorizes disclosure of the information or Submission.

To participate in the Challenge participants must agree to these terms and other terms described in the iLobby Policy Process Challenge Intellectual Property Agreement.

Submissions will be retained by iLobby for use by iLobby, its affiliates, licensees and Challenge partners.

Applications will be retained by iLobby; information and data will be accessed only by iLobby and its competition partners and not sold or shared.

Disclaimers: The Challenge Rules are subject to change. Registered participants will receive notification when changes are made. However, participants are encouraged to visit the Challenge Site often to review updates.

iLobby is not responsible or liable for late, lost, incomplete, illegible, misdirected, stolen, delayed, damaged or destroyed entries, notifications, replies or any Challenge Release; for lost, interrupted, inaccessible or unavailable networks, servers, Internet Service Providers, websites or other connection, related to the Challenge; for errors of any kind, including but not limited to human, electronic, mechanical and/or technical in nature; for failure or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer and online systems, servers, computer equipment, software, e-mail, players, or browsers on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet, any websites related to the Challenge, including without limitation the Challenge Webpage, or any combination thereof or otherwise; for any injury or damage to participant, participant’s computer, or any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participating in or downloading material in connection with the Challenge; for incorrect or inaccurate information; and/or for weather conditions, event cancellations, delay or rescheduling or other factors beyond iLobby’s control.

CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT TO UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THIS CHALLENGE MAY BE A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS AND SHOULD AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, ILOBBY RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES OR OTHER REMEDIES FROM ANY SUCH PERSON(S) RESPONSIBLE TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

Governing Law: The Challenge is subject to applicable federal, provincial and municipal laws and regulations and is void where prohibited by law. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of the Challenge Rules or the rights and obligations as between the entrant and the iLobby in connection with the Challenge shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of California including procedural provisions without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules or provisions that would cause the application of any other jurisdiction’s laws. The decisions of iLobby with respect to all aspects of the Challenge are final and binding.