Terms and conditions

The KiwiNet Te Tūāpapa Auaha (Auaha) Innovation platform, is a central hub for connecting and collaborating across the innovation ecosystem.

Auaha is a place to share, evaluate, experiment, incubate, develop, track, and report on the best ideas New Zealand has to offer, using an advanced idea & innovation management software platform.

We do not claim any rights in or to the ideas, initiatives, or content shared on Auaha.

Please read the following Terms of Service carefully. By accessing or using our Services, you hereby agree to be bound by this Agreement (as defined below) and all terms and their modifications are incorporated herein by this reference. If you do not agree to all terms and conditions, then please do not access, or use our Services.

Our Services

Auaha is managed in New Zealand and powered by KiwiNet. Auaha offers to our members, partners, and participants to utilise services within the platform to accelerate and drive the growth of commercial potential innovation and innovation pipelines, across the New Zealand Innovation ecosystem.

The following terms and conditions, and all other operating rules and policies made available on or through the Auaha, as well as any future modifications thereto are an agreement (the“Agreement”) between you, or your company, and us. The Agreement is governing your use, and Auaha’s provision, of the Services.

KiwiNet reserves the right to update and change the Terms of Service from time to time without notice, effective immediately, by posting the updated Terms of Service on our website. Your continued use of the Services after any such changes shall constitute consent to such changes. You agree to review the Terms of Service periodically to be aware of any such revisions. Any new features that modify, e.g. enhance the current Services, including the release of new tools and resources, shall be subject to the Agreement between us and you.

Communities, Initiatives, Entries, and Content

You shall be solely responsible for your own Communities, Initiatives, Entries, and all other materials, including, without limitation, information, data, text, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, and email messages or other kinds of messages posted, received, or sent on or through the Services ("Content"). You are solely responsible for the consequences of posting or publishing to such Communities, Initiatives, Entries, and Content through our Services.

By posting and publishing to Communities, Initiatives, Entries, and Content through our Services, you represent and warrant that: you have the necessary licenses, rights, consents and permissions to use all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, or other proprietary rights in and to any and all of your Communities, Initiatives, Entries, and Content and to enable the inclusion and use of your Communities, Initiatives, Entries, and Content in the manner contemplated on Auaha and in this Agreement.

Account registration and the use of the Services

You must be a natural person or a natural person representing a legal entity (e.g., company, association, or other organization). Accounts registered by"bots" or other automated methods are in violation of the Agreement and will be immediately terminated. If you are subscribing to our Service on behalf of an entity, such as your employer or the company you work for, you represent and warrant to us that you have the legal authority to bind that legal entity.

You must provide a valid email address and truthfully provide any other information requested in order to complete the Registration process.

You must not impersonate nor misrepresent your identity or affiliations with other persons or entities.

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account. Auaha shall not be liable for any loss or damage from your failure to comply with this security obligation. You are liable for any acts or omissions made using your login.

You must not intentionally and maliciously disrupt the reasonable enjoyment of others using the Services.

If your use of the Services causes undue stress on the Services and the systems running the Services, KiwiNet reserves the right to limit or disable your access to the Services without notice.

Verbal, physical, written, or other abuse (including threats of abuse or retribution) of any customer, employee, member, or of KiwiNet will result in immediate account termination.

You may not forge or manipulate headers, data, or network protocols to disguise the origin of Content or otherwise disrupt the intended use of the Services.

Content Restrictions

You are responsible for any Communities, Initiatives, Entries, and Content that you initiate and for all activity that occurs under your account, whether done so by you or any third person using your account.

We have the right, but not the obligation, to remove Communities, Initiatives, Entries, and Content that we determine, in our sole discretion, to be "Offensive Content" (as defined below). We also have the right, but not the obligation, to limit or revoke the use privileges of anyone who posts such Offensive Content or engages in otherwise unacceptable behaviour on or through the Services.

We cannot control all Content posted by users and/or third parties on the Services. You agree to use the Services at your own risk. You understand that by using the Services you may be exposed to Content that you may find offensive, indecent, incorrect or objectionable, and you agree that under no circumstances will KiwiNet be liable in any way for any Content, including any errors or omissions in any Content, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of your use of any Content. You understand that you must evaluate and bear all risks associated with the use of any Content, including any reliance on the Content, integrity, and accuracy of such Content. If you would like to report objectionable materials, you may contact us at info@auaha-platform.nz.

You may not post any unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable Communities, Initiatives, Entries, and Content ("Offensive Content"). Examples of such Offensive Content include, but are not limited to, the following:

• abuse, harassment, threats, flaming or intimidation of any person or organization
• engaging in or contributing to any illegal activity or activity that violates others’ rights
• use of derogatory, discriminatory or excessively graphic language
• providing information that is false, misleading or inaccurate
• hacking or modifying the Services to falsely imply an association with KiwiNet or Auaha
• engaging in or contributing to any activity that maliciously degrades the Services
• implying or pretending to be affiliated with a company or organization with which you are not affiliated, or misrepresenting the extent of your affiliation or role with an affiliated company or organization
• disclosing personal login information, including, but not limited to passwords without the express permission of the individual, company or organization who provided it to you
• transmitting worms, viruses or harmful software
• sending spam, unsolicited mail, junk mail or chain letters
• disclosing personal or proprietary information of another individual, company or organization
• altering the Service’s user interface in a way that removes access to any part of the Service’s functionality and/or inhibits access to or the display of advertisements
• collecting the content or information belonging to our users or Auaha, or otherwise accessing the Services, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders or scrapers) without our permission
• soliciting log in information or accessing the account of another user of the Services
• promoting, condoning, endorsing, distributing, publishing, or posting any material that solicits money, funds or people on websites or other properties that belong to KiwiNet
• aiding in the use of the Services for purposes of advertisement or solicitation for commercial goods or services on websites or other properties that belong to KiwiNet
• harassing, annoying, intimidating or threatening users of the Services or employees or agents of KiwiNet
• removing or altering, visually or not, any copyrights, trademarks, or proprietary marks and rights owned by us
• forging, manipulating or plagiarizing messages, communications, headers or identifiers to imply an association with us or the Services
• posting, publishing, displaying or transmitting in any way proprietary information, copyrighted material and other intellectual property(e.g.trademarks) not belonging to you, without the prior written consent of the owner of such rights
• posting content that uses, promotes or links to an illegal or unauthorized copy of another person’s copyrighted work or other intellectual property
• posting content that advocates, endorses, condones or promotes harassment of others, or content that actively or indirectly harasses others
• posting content that is offensive and harmful, including but not limited to, content that advocates, endorses, condones or promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any individual or any group of individuals
• posting content that provides materials or access to materials that exploits people under the age of 18 in an abusive, violent or sexual manner
• posting content that solicits personal information or any information from anyone under the age of 18

Intellectual Property Rights

You retain all your ownership rights in your Communities, Initiatives, Entries, and Content.

Links to Third Party Content

You may find on Auaha links to other sites. You acknowledge and agree that we are not responsible or liable for: (i) the availability or accuracy of such sites or resources; or (ii) the content, advertising, or products on or available from such sites or resources. The inclusion of any link on Auaha or the Services does not imply that we endorse the linked site. You use the links at your own risk and expressly relieve us from any and all liability arising from your use of any third-party website.

Third-party Services

As part of your enjoyment of the Services, subject to this Agreement, you may grant a third party access to your account to provide additional products, services or labour, provided you agree to be responsible for the actions of the third party and to bind the third party to this Agreement as your agent.

From time to time, separate applications or services that integrate or interoperate with the auaha.org.nz Services ("Add-ons") may become available, either directly from auaha.org.nz or independently. If you choose to install, access or enable an Add-on, you agree that the third-party Add-on provider may acquire access to your account data and information as required for the interoperation or integration of such Add-on and you grant auaha.org.nz permission to give such Add-on access to your account data and information. Accordingly, such applications are governed by their own terms and conditions and are not considered Services under this Agreement.

Warranty Disclaimers

You expressly understand and agree that:

All Services are provided "as is" and auaha.org.nz hereby disclaims all warranties and conditions with regard to the Services, whether express, implied or statutory, including all warranties and conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement.

Auaha makes no warranty that (i) the Services will meet your requirements or expectations; (ii) that your access to or use of the Services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error free; (iii) that any defects in the Services will be corrected; or (iv) that the Services or any server through which you access the Services are free of viruses or other harmful components.

Any material downloaded or otherwise obtained through the use of the Services are accessed at your own discretion and risk, and you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from the download of or access to any such material.

No advice or information, whether oral or written, obtained by you from auaha.org.nz or through or from the Services shall create any warranty not expressly stated in the Agreement.

Limitation of Liability

You expressly understand and agree that KiwiNet and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, employees, agents, partners, and licensors shall not be liable to you for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or exemplary damages, including, but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data, or other intangible losses (even if KiwiNet has been advised of the possibility of such damages) in any way relating to or arising from this Agreement. In no event shall KiwiNet or its respective suppliers’ aggregate liability for direct damages under this Agreement exceed the fees paid by you for the immediately preceding month before the claim. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or the limitation or exclusion of liability for incidental or consequential damages. Accordingly, some of the above limitations may not apply to you.

Please note that deletion or downgrading your account may result in the loss of Communities, Initiatives, Entries, and Content and other features, or capacity of your account. KiwiNet does not accept any liability for any such losses.

Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless KiwiNet, its officers, directors, employees, and agents for any losses, costs, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) relating to or arising out of your connection to or use of the Services, including but not limited to any breach by you of the Agreement and any claims arising from the Hackathons, Entries and Content you submit, post, transmit or make available through the Services.

Non-solicitation

You may not use the Services to solicit, interfere with, or endeavour to entice away from auaha.org.nz any auaha.org.nz customer, user, or subscriber.

The Services are for your own use only. You may not resell, lease or provide them in any other way to anyone else, except as expressly permitted through the Services or by written permission of KiwiNet.

Service Guarantee

We will respond to your support inquiries within 7 days and we will ensure the Services have no unreasonable unexpected downtime.

Modifications to the Services

KiwiNet reserves the right at any time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Services (or any part thereof) with or without notice. KiwiNet shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, price change, suspension or discontinuance of the Services.

Termination

You may terminate the Agreement by deleting your account at any time. KiwiNet may terminate or deactivate your account without notice in the event that you are in breach of any terms and conditions of this Agreement.

Refunds

KiwiNet is not obligated in any circumstances to provide refunds or credits for partial months or years of the Services, upgrades or downgrades, or unused time during your subscription.

Governing Law

This Agreement, your rights and obligations, and all actions contemplated by this Agreement shall be governed by the laws of New Zealand. Any disputes arising under this Agreement shall be heard in New Zealand. You also agree that regardless of any statute or law to the contrary, any claim or cause of action arising from or related to the use of the Services must be filed within three (3) months after such claim or cause of action arose or be forever barred. The failure of either party to exercise in any respect any right provided for herein shall not be deemed a waiver of any further rights hereunder.

Force Majeure

KiwiNet shall not be responsible for any failure to perform due to unforeseen, non-commercial circumstances beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, war, riot, crime, terrorist attacks, embargoes, acts of civil or military authorities, widespread Internet outages, fire, floods, earthquakes, accidents, strikes, fuel or energy. In the event of any such delay, any applicable period of time for action by KiwiNet may be deferred for a period equal to the time of such delay.

Integration and Severability

This Agreement between you and KiwiNet with respect to the Services supersedes all prior or contemporaneous communications and proposals (whether oral, written or electronic) between you and KiwiNet with respect to the Services. If any provision of this Agreement is found to be unenforceable or invalid, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that the other provision of the Agreement will remain in full force and effect and enforceable. The failure by either party to exercise in any respect any right provided for herein shall not be deemed a waiver of any further rights hereunder.

No Agency

No agency, franchise, partnership, joint-venture, or employee-employer relationship is intended or created by this Agreement.

Assignment

KiwiNet may assign or transfer this Agreement, in its sole discretion, without restriction. Subject to the foregoing, this Agreement will bind and inure to the benefit of the parties, their successors and permitted assigns.

Notices

Any notices or other communications required hereunder will be in writing. For notices made by e-mail, the date of receipt will be deemed the date on which such notice is transmitted, unless the sender received a failure of delivery notice.

Headings for Convenience Only

Headings are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect.

Technical Support

Auaha provides its participants and administrators local technical support across New Zealand. Technical support is provided during normal business working hours.

Admin licenses

All initiatives will be assigned an account administrator to cover the period of the challenge build and duration of the challenge. Once the challenge has completed, administration rights will be removed one month post the submission close date (unless otherwise arranged), but your site will remain active until a request to remove this site is made.

Payment

Challenge owners will be invoiced upon acceptance of the submission form and payment must be received prior to the challenge submission applications open.

Contact

If you have any questions about these Terms of Service, please contact us at info@auaha-platform.nz.