Eligibility & Criteria
Eligibility
We welcome and celebrate many different drone use cases and companies at Airwards, however there are some eligibility requirements and rules to check first, before you enter. We need these in order for our awards to be standardised and fair across the various different categories and throughout the judging process.
All entrants (old and new) must meet our eligibility criteria every year. By ensuring that the entries follow fundamental guidelines which reflect our criteria, best practices and ethos, the judges have all the necessary information to make their decisions in identifying the best positive drone use cases out there.
When considering entering Airwards you should be aware of and fulfil the following:
📑 Airwards criteria and sub criteria standards of best practice.
✔️ Reflect our mission to spread the word about positive drone use cases and demonstrate how Life’s Better With Drones.
💡 Make sure you are submitting a use case and not a company profile.
📋 The entry answers, and any media we are given, in English. Any entries provided to us in another language will be translated using Google Translate.
⚖️ Your use case has all the necessary permissions and you have met all the legal requirements necessary in your respective country which your use case was undertaken.
📌 Your use cases took place (launched to market) between 01 January 2022 and 01 January 2024.
Rules are made to be broken. Right? Wrong!
They’re pretty much the foundation of what we’re trying to do here. They help us maintain equality and fairness as well as achieve the necessary high standard that we pride ourselves on.
These are different from the eligibility of entering Airwards and are the rules we expect all entrants to be bound by with their entry. If any of these are broken or an entrant is found to have breached them, then the instance will be reviewed and may result in disqualification altogether. Entrants are required to:
Register directly via the Airwards Website here. Airwards will then email all registrants to submit directly via forms. Unfortunately, we are unable to accept written, emailed, carrier pigeon or other submissions.
Adhere to all Airwards deadlines and submit entries within the identified timeframe. Your submission must be received before the entry deadline in order to be considered for judging. No extensions will be allowed and if you fail to submit information within the timeframes stated your entry will be removed from consideration and not be put forward to subsequent rounds of judging. There are no exceptions as we are a small team and require time to carefully review all use case submissions.
Include tailored answers, ideally with tangible outcomes and success metrics. If Airwards finds that the same versions of your copy have been used multiple times for different questions we will only use it once and your scores will be 0 for the rest.
Refrain from influencing the judges in any way. This would be considered a breach and may result in disqualification.
Ensure you have permission for the work you are submitted, and that you have followed all safety + rules of the country your use case was undertaken in. Use of illegal media or practises within submissions will lead to disqualification.
Submit a use case that has been released, launched, implemented, deployed or otherwise put into use between 01 January 2022 and 01 January 2024. Beta versions, upgrades or new releases that include significant changes and added features are also welcome.
Refrain from submitting the same use case two years in a row, within the same category. It may be entered in a different category, but only if the use case has been significantly updated or changed. If you’re a winner from our previous years you cannot submit the same use case.
If your use case is found to be in breach of any of these, it will be withdrawn and disqualified (either before or after any awards are given). This will be at the discretion of the Airwards team or judges. Please see full T&C’s and legal information. Additional things to note:
If deemed appropriate, judges reserve the right to re-allocate entries into another category.
The judge's decisions are final.
Airwards retains rights to edit aspects of your entry purely for the purposes of presentation and/or marketing. We will not make any edits to the content or information relating to questions answered for judges to review.
What is Airwards built on, what holds everything together and what are the reasons for our existence?
Those are just some of the questions we asked ourselves during our creation. Our brand pillars are not only the points that set us apart, summing up our outlook on the things that matter most to you, but they are also the criteria which our entrants are judged against.
We chose our three criteria to best reflect and represent the drone industry externally. We use them to guide us in everything we do, from how Airwards conducts itself to what we look for and ask of our entrants.
We believe that having this strong foundation enables us to truly champion those who are responsible and believe in a better world by recognising their innovation and positive real world impact by demonstrating that Life’s Better With Drones.
Innovation
Promoting pioneering ideas that are successfully challenging the perception of what a drone is and can be.
Adaptive | New to the field of endeavour
Imitative | New to a region or business
Novel | New to the world
Responsibility
Recognising this key aspect of every drone flight to advocate legitimate behaviour as best practice standard.
Environmental / Sustainable | Our relationship with the planet
Safety | Pilots / Public / Communities
Socially Ethical | Having a duty of care and duty to act
Real-World / Impact
Asking the question: ‘How are drones making a difference?’ by demonstrating quantifiable outcomes and real-world solutions.
Beneficiaries | Who are the entities who are most affected
Positive Effect | Improving the human condition and world
Tangible | A positive consequence from an action
Is it a Use Case?
To help entrants and judges, we will only be accepting entries that can be defined as use cases.
We’re doing this, as we think it will help to better demonstrate how drone companies around the world are meeting goals that directly relate to our company values and judging criteria of Innovation, Responsibility, and Real-World Impact.
At Airwards a use case is defined as a direct example of how a system, process, technology or product has been used to achieve a unique, specific goal, borne out of a problem. It should tell a story about an instance in which it has reached its goal, and how it did so. It should also tell a story about someone who uses your product, service or technology in a real world situation. For example; You can’t just put your software forward. Instead you should aim to put your software forward in the context of it being used as part of a drone use case covering our criteria and the above.
Use case
A charity who supplies aid has identified a remote community in dire need of assistance. To do this, they decide to utilise drone technology to move the products using innovative methods. A company who has developed an innovative solution to an issue utilising drone technology as a means to deliver that solution in a responsible manner having a real world impact.
Not a use case
A company profile or press release submission where they have created a drone related software platform, which is available for purchase.
