OpenUK Awards 2024 – Nomination criteria per category

Open Source Software

Nominations are welcomed for projects and organisations working on open source software projects of any and all sizes. The software in question must be distributed on a licence approved by the Open Source Initiative.

The judges will consider novel contributions to the state of the art, projects with wide adoption or impact as well as community and collaboratively developed projects, whether commercial or not. The value and impact of these contributions will be evaluated and ranked by the judges.

The project or organisation must have a demonstrable and impactful UK presence and in the case of enterprises should be a UK registered company – this should be made clear in the application.

Startup sponsored by Runa Capital

Nominations are welcomed for projects from startup organisations that are using open source software tooling to build and provide their products and services and have contributed back to the open source communities; or which provide openly licensed implementations of their product or tools. Any software must be distributed on a licence approved by the Open Source Initiative and data or hardware openly-licensed.

To meet the criteria for this award, an entity must be a company based in the UK with a UK registered entity and a UK-based Founder, be less than 5 years old and have received less than £20m in funding on 19 September 2023.

Open Hardware sponsored by DevTank

Nominations are welcomed for projects and organisations working on openly-licensed hardware projects of any size. This category includes all forms of hardware from CPU instructions set architectures and electronics through to build plans or specifications for real world objects that might be fabricated by hand, using machine tools, 3D printing, etc.

The project or organisation must have a demonstrable and impactful UK presence and in the case of enterprises should be a UK registered company – this should be made clear in the application.

Law and Policy sponsored by Iain G Mitchell KC

Nominations are welcomed for projects and organisations in the Open Technology ecosystem in any of open source software, open hardware, open data, or which uses open standards and open innovation making a contribution within the Legal and Policy sector that encourages and supports Open Technology. This can be any contribution, including pro-bono work, drafting or advice on legal documents, company policy, government policy, open source strategy, enabling open source and breaking down barriers to adopting tools from open source ecosystems.

The project or organisation must have a demonstrable and impactful UK presence and in the case of enterprises should be a UK registered company – this should be made clear in the application.

Open Data sponsored by ODI

Nominations are welcomed for projects and organisations working on an openly-licensed data project or associated policy or legal work that encourages and supports open data ecosystems.

The project or organisation must have a demonstrable and impactful UK presence and in the case of enterprises should be a UK registered company – this should be made clear in the application.

Belonging

Nominations are welcomed for projects and organisations across the Open Technology ecosystem in any of open source software, open hardware, open data, or which uses open standards and open innovation that demonstrate outstanding contribution and impact to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This includes solving unique challenges, emphasising transparency of opportunities, mentorship, coaching and nurturing the creation of diverse, inclusive and neurodiverse communities and more.

This can be any contribution including creation of engagement programmes, leadership, support, promoting awareness or encouraging D&I practices within the wider community. The value and impact of these contributions will be evaluated and ranked by the judges. The project or organisation must have a demonstrable and impactful UK presence and in the case of enterprises should be a UK registered company – this should be made clear in the application.

Finance

Nominations are welcomed for projects and organisations within the Financial or Fintech sector: that are using open source software to build and provide their financial products and services; or provide publicly available implementations of open financial APIs. The software in question must be distributed on a licence approved by the Open Source Initiative.

The project or organisation must have a demonstrable and impactful UK presence and in the case of enterprises should be a UK registered company – this should be made clear in the application.

Sustainability sponsored by Avanade

Nominations are open for projects and organisations across the Open Technology ecosystem in any of open source software, open hardware, open data, or which uses open standards and open innovation to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development goals.

The project or organisation must have a demonstrable and impactful UK presence and in the case of enterprises should be a UK registered company – this should be made clear in the application.

AI sponsored by AutoGPT

Nominations are welcomed for projects and organisations working on openly-licensed machine learning, AI projects, openly licensed software, openly licensed deep learning models, openly licensed training data and openly licensed extensions or improvements to proprietary (but available at no cost for non-commercial use) AI systems and models.

The project or organisation must have a demonstrable and impactful UK presence and in the case of enterprises should be a UK registered company – this should be made clear in the application.

Young Person sponsored by Venafi Jetstack Consult

Nominations are open for young individuals who have demonstrated outstanding work in an individual capacity within the Open Technology ecosystem across open source software, open hardware, open data, or which uses open standards and open innovation. This includes forging ahead and offering a unique contribution to a project or a community, project leadership, code, documentation, artwork, support, promoting awareness, good governance or encouraging open practices by others – the full gambit of contributions.

Nominees must be under 25 on 19th September 2024 and do not need to be engaged in a programme of education. The projects may or may not be done as part of a programme of education but must be openly-licensed. All individuals nominated must have been UK resident for all of the preceding 12 months.

Security sponsored by Control Plane

Nominations are welcomed for projects and organisations making significant contributions to the security of open source software whether through project, running bug bounty programmes for open source software, impacting on best practices in security or other significant contributions to the security of open source software. The software in question must be distributed on a licence approved by the Open Source Initiative. This can be any contribution including project leadership, code, documentation, support, advocacy, promoting awareness or encouraging open and secure practices from others.

The project or organisation must have a demonstrable and impactful UK presence and in the case of enterprises should be a UK registered company – this should be made clear in the application.

Individual sponsored by Red Badger

Nominations are open for individuals who have demonstrated outstanding work in an individual capacity within the Open Technology ecosystem across any of open source software, open hardware, open data, or which uses open standards and open innovation. This includes forging ahead and offering a unique contribution to a project or a community, project leadership, code, documentation, artwork, support, promoting awareness, good governance or encouraging open practices by others – the full gambit of contributions.

All individuals nominated must have been UK resident for all of the preceding 12 months.