The IEEE Austria Section honors the accomplishments of its active Student Branches. At the yearly General Assembly, the Section hands out awards in three different categories to its student branches:

• Innovation Award
• Development Award
• Activity Award

The awards as well as their evaluation criteria are described below.

Awards

 Innovation Award

The Innovation Award awards innovative new concepts applied by the Student Branches. It is intended to motivate Student Branches to leave their comfort zone and explore new paths.

Applied concepts can include all aspects of Student Branches’ work. Examples include but are not limited to:

• new way of collaborating for the organization of an event, e.g., using new tools,
• new tools/processes for managing daily business
• innovative place for an event to take place,
• new innovative website, advertisement strategy/utilities,
• innovative types of or topics for events.

To qualify for the award, applied concepts do not have to be successful. Failures in applying new concepts may also qualify for the award if they meet the following criteria:

1. A lessons learned, intended to analyze the failure of the applied concept, must be well documented.
2. Theories must be drawn what may have led to the failing of the applied concept.
3. A conclusion must be available if the applied concept is to be tried anew with modification or whether it shall be dropped altogether for discussed reasons.

A concept is innovative if the concept has not been applied at a Student Branch within the last three years. If a Student Branch A copies a concept already applied by Student Branch B, the concept is innovative w.r.t. Student Branch A and thus qualifies for the award.

The innovative concept must have been applied to qualify for the award. The idea by itself is not sufficient.

Submissions are evaluated by the following criteria:

• novelty of the concept,
• benefits for the Student Branch (e.g. member development),
• short and long term benefits,
• effort spent.

Each Student Branch may enter up to two submissions in this category.

Development Award

The Development Award awards activities or events which have a positive impact on the sustainable development of a Student Branch. It is intended to motivate Student Branches to invest into long term projects whose pay off may not show immediately, but within the next 2-5 years. Examples include but are not limited to:

• a new, more attractive website to improve visibility,
• development of guidelines for future Student Branch Members/Executive Committees, e.g., documented best practises, checklists for event organization,
• new visual identity, e.g., new poster template, logo, etc.,
• fundraising events or member development events.

Each Student Branch may choose to enter up to two submissions in this category. Submissions are evaluated by the following criteria:

• effort spent,
• impact on sustainability of the Student Branch for the next term of an Executive Committee.

Activity Award

The Activity Award honors active Student Branches which accomplish a large number of events and activities. The award shall motivate Student Branches to achieve a high level of visibility and attractiveness for students to join events and, in the best case, become active members within the Student Branch.

Each Student Branch may enter a single submission stating a description of their activities including a list of technical, social or networking events including the following information:

• Title and date of the event
• Number of participants (IEEE student branch members, IEEE members, external guest)
• Short textual description (min. 300 characters)
• Benefits (in case of co-operation with partners, e.g. allocated sponsor money, sponsored courses, dedicated communication platform, information provided, event calendar, ...)
• A description of how the activities are aligned with the strategic goals/plan of the student branch
• Optional picture of the event

Additionally, a list of administrative events to administer the student branch and plan and prepare activities

• Title and date of the event
• Number of participants (IEEE student branch members, IEEE members, external guest)
• Short textual description only if it is a non-standard event such as a meeting of the organizing committee.

Submissions are evaluated by the following criteria:

• Quantity of the events will be judged in the context of the individual branch. Small or building-up student branches should not be excluded by pure quantity e.g. number of events. Number of events and participants are typical evaluation measures. Additionally, the development of the size of the student branch can be included.
• Quality of the events and activities should are considered as weighting factors for the event. In particular the benefit for the members, the quality of the organisation and execution and the attractiveness to students should be evaluated. Novelty and individual initiative will be honoured.
• Continuity of activities should be honours. Although regular events show less novelty, they require hard work to be attractive even after a longer period.

Awarding Modes

The submissions are evaluated by the IEEE Austria Section Award Officer, the IEEE Austria Section Student Branch Coordination Officer, and the IEEE Austria Section ExCom. Any member of the award committee may be excluded if the person is likely to be biased based on close affiliation to any Student Branch. The award committee will be presented during the award ceremony at the General Assembly.

The award committee will create an ordered list of excellent nominees from the applications and the ExCom will select the winner within each category. Winner and nominees are presented at the General Assembly to promote excellent ideas and activities.

In each category prize money worth 250€ is awarded. The award committee is free to choose

• one winner
• two winners in case the two nominees are equal in their achievements (should be exception)
• no winner in case the required criteria are not matched sufficiently (e.g. sufficient quality)

The prize money should be invested within the winning  IEEE Student Branch(es) to pursue the goals of the IEEE Section Austria. A short report should be given at the home page of the IEEE Austria Section about the usage of the money to make the prize visible and to encourage other Student Branches to apply for the price.

Submission Deadline

The deadline for submissions is the 15th of September.