SELECTION CRITERIA

Selecting Contestants

The coordinating committee will select 30 contestants from applicants, based on their letters of intent, as follows:

1. Applicants will be eliminated:
   1. if they do not meet eligibility requirements;
   2. if they do not follow instructions ;
   3. if they do not fully complete the letter of intent; or
   4. if their written essays indicate an inability to communicate clearly in English.
2. Applicants will be eliminated if their preliminary ideas for the design:
   1. are identical or nearly identical to existing or emerging technologies;
   2. involve incineration or burning; or (c) will not meet the design criteria.
3. The coordinating committee will then score the remaining applicants according to the practicality/appropriateness for a rural setting and originality/creativity of their preliminary ideas. If nearly identical ideas are proposed by two or more applicants, the backgrounds of the applicants will be considered in the ranking.
4. Applicants will then be categorized according to geographical regions (East Asia/Pacific, Europe/Central Asia, Latin America/Caribbean, Middle East/North Africa, North America (USA/Canada), South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa) and whether or not they come from developing countries (with a Human Development Index (HDI, 1999) value of less than 0.800, UNDP's Human Development Report). Thirty contestants will be selected by taking the applicants with the highest scores from each region and if necessary, by adding applicants with the highest scores from developing countries to ensure balanced representation.

Applicants will be informed of the selection results by November 1, 2002. The decisions of the coordinating committee are final and are not subject to appeal. The 30 contestants will be invited to submit their conceptual designs. Contestants may be added later if some contestants drop out.

Judging

A panel of judges will review and score each submission based on the following:

• Clarity of design description and illustration
• Completeness and strength of the point-by-point explanation regarding the 15 criteria for conceptual designs
• Strength of the supporting documentation
• Manufacturability
• Additional points will be given for orginality and creativity, practicality, and overall quality of the report.

All submissions must be complete. The judges' decision is final.

The panel of judges is composed of:
 

• Jorge Emmanuel, PhD, PE, CHMM (chair, coordinating committee)
  Health Care Without Harm
  Rodeo, California, USA
• Ed Krisiunas, MT(ASCP), CIC, MPH (coordinating committee)
  President, WNWN International*
  Burlington, Connecticut, USA
• Ira Salkin, PhD, F(AAM) (coordinating committee)
  Information From Science, LLC*
  West Sand Lake, New York, USA
• Michael Cowing, MSc
  Natural Resources Management Unit
  Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States*
  Castries, St. Lucia, West Indies
• Ravi Agarwal
  Chief Coordinator, Srishti*
  New Delhi, India
• Susan Wain, PhD
  Medical Waste Consultant, ENTEC*
  Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
• Ronnie Russell PhD
  The Moyne Institute for Preventive Medicine
  University of Dublin, Trinity College*
  Dublin, Ireland

* affiliations for identification purposes only