AIcrowd | Flextrack Challenge 2025

FlexTrack Challenge — Official Rules

PLEASE READ THESE OFFICIAL RULES (“RULES”) CAREFULLY. ENTRY INTO THIS CHALLENGE CONSTITUTES YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE RULES. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ANY PART OF THESE RULES, PLEASE DO NOT ENTER THIS CHALLENGE. NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A PURCHASE OF ANY KIND WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING.

1. Challenge Overview

The FlexTrack Challenge is an opportunity for researchers and machine learning enthusiasts to test their skills on the tasks of Classification (Phase 1) and Regression (Phase 2) to predict demand response events in buildings (“the Challenge”). The Challenge Problem Statement focuses on detecting and estimating Demand Response (DR) events in buildings, requiring participants to identify when DR events occurred, their duration, and quantify the corresponding increase or decrease in power consumption relative to baseline consumption.

2. Organisers, Sponsors and Organiser Admins

The Challenge is organised by University of Wollongong (ABN 61 060 567 686) of Northfields Avenue, Wollongong, NSW, 2522 (“the Organiser”).

The Challenge is sponsored by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (ABN 41 687 119 230) of CSIRO Black Mountain Science and Innovation Park, Clunies Ross Street, Acton ACT 2601 acting through its Energy Business Unit and RACE for 2030 Limited (ABN 46 640 317 559) (“the Sponsors”.)

"Organiser Admins" are any companies or organisations authorised by the Organiser to aid the Organiser with the administration or execution of this Challenge. The Organiser has engaged AIcrowd Ltd (CHE- 351.421.738), EPFL Innovation Park, Bâtiment C, c/o Fondation EPFL Innovation Park, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland (“AIcrowd”) as Organiser Admins.

3. Timeline

The Challenge will follow the timeline outlined below. Please note that some end dates for the rounds may change; and updates will be communicated promptly. The proposed timeline is subject to change, and any updates will be shared by email and posted on the challenge website.

Website and Registration Launch: 19th August 2025
Data Release: 19th August 2025
Phase 1 Launch: 19th August 2025, 23:59 UTC
Phase 2 Launch: 15th September 2025, 23:59 UTC
Solution Documentation Deadline: 19th October 2025, 23:59 UTC
Challenge Completion Date: 19th October 2025, 23:59 UTC
Winner Announcement: 15th November 2025
2025 IEEE International Conference on Energy Technologies for Future Grids (IEEE ETFG): 7-11th December 2025

4. Definitions

For the purposes of this Challenge:

“Challenge” means the FlexTrack Challenge described in the Overview.
“Participant” means any individual who meets the eligibility requirements, and has completed the Challenge registration process themselves
“Team” means a group of one or more Participants who together submit an Entry into the Challenge. Each Participant must be part of a Team, and may only be member of one Team.
“Entry” means the submissions made by the Team or Participant for consideration in the Challenge, including all materials, content, and information provided as part of the submission process. An Entry must comply with all requirements set out in these Rules, including eligibility, format, originality and content standards.
“Challenge Problem Statement” means the specific task or set of tasks described at https://www.aicrowd.com/challenges/flextrack-challenge-2025 which a Team must address in their Entry.

5. Participant Eligibility Requirements

You, the Participant, are eligible to enter this Challenge if you (and each member of your Team) meet all of the following requirements as of the time and date of registration:

You are a human;
You are 18 years of age or older but in no event less than the age of majority in your place of residence;
You have internet access, an email account, and access to a personal computer;
You have accurately and truthfully completed the participant registration;
You are part of a Team (see below); and
You are not a resident of one of the excluded countries or regions listed below.

The Challenge is open to residents of Australia and worldwide, except that if you are a resident of the country or region of Belarus, Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, or any other country or region that is subject to Australian export controls or sanctions, you may not enter the Challenge. This Challenge is void where prohibited or restricted by law.

A Team can be made up of one or more Participants. Each Participant may only be a member of one Team. Any Participant found to be part of more than one Team will be disqualified, and all associated Teams and Participants in those Teams will also be disqualified.

People who during the Challenge Period have access, through their employment, consultancy or other means, to the data used to formulate the Challenge Problem Statement, including information about how the data is generated and/or constructed, are not eligible to win a prize in this Challenge. The Organiser reserves the right to verify eligibility and adjudicate any eligibility dispute at any time.

If any Team receives any third-party funding primarily intended to facilitate its participation in this Challenge, such funding must be disclosed to the Organiser no later than the Challenge Completion Date, along with any requirements imposed on the Team in connection with the funding. Teams may not accept or use any third-party funding if acceptance or use of that funding, or any requirements imposed in connection with that funding, would conflict with these Rules.

By participating in the Challenge, all Participants unconditionally accept and agree to comply with and abide by these Rules and the decisions of the Organiser which will be final and binding including the Organiser’s right to verify eligibility, to interpret these Rules, and to resolve any disputes relating to this Challenge at any time.

6. Is the Entry an Eligible Entry?

To be eligible to be considered for a prize, as solely determined by the Organiser, the Entry MUST:

directly respond to the Challenge Problem Statement which can be found at https://www.aicrowd.com/challenges/flextrack-challenge-2025;
be compatible with the specified submission format;
be in English;
be the Team's own original work;
not have been submitted previously in any promotion of any kind;
not contain material or content that:
is inappropriate, indecent, obscene, offensive, sexually explicit, pornographic, hateful, tortious, defamatory, or slanderous or libelous; or
promotes bigotry, racism, hatred or harm against any group or individual or promotes discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or age; or
promotes alcohol, illegal drugs, or tobacco; or
violates or infringes another's rights, including but not limited to rights of privacy, publicity, or their intellectual property rights; or
is inconsistent with the message, brand, or image of the Organiser or Promoters; or
is in violation of or contrary to the laws or regulations of any jurisdiction in which the Entry is created; and

Each Team MUST:

designate one person as the team leader who will be solely responsible for receiving communications from and communicating with the Organiser (“Team Leader”);
ensure the Team has obtained any and all consents, approvals, or licenses required for submission of the Entry;
obtain any consents necessary from all Participants of the Team with respect to the sharing of their personal information as outlined herein;
obtain the agreement of all Participants of the Team to these Rules;
not generate the Entry by any means which violate these Rules or the Organiser’s Privacy Policy;
not engage in false, fraudulent, or deceptive acts at any phase during participation in the Challenge; and
not tamper or abuse any aspect of this Challenge.

7. Disqualification

If you, any Participant in your Team or your Team’s Entry is found to be ineligible for any reason, including but not limited to non-compliance with Sections 5 and 6 of these Rules, the Organiser reserves the right to disqualify your Entry, you, your Team and any associated Participants, from this Challenge.
Each Participant may only create one account to participate in the Challenge. Use of multiple accounts will result in disqualification from the Challenge.
The Organiser reserves the right to disqualify any Participant and their Team if found tampering with the entry process or otherwise interfering with the proper administration of the Challenge.

8. How May the Entry Potentially Be Used?

The Organiser does not claim to own your Team's Entry, however, by submitting the Entry you and each Participant of your Team:

agree to make the Entry and training code publicly available under the terms of the Apache 2.0 licence;
hereby grant to Organiser Admins a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, world-wide right and license to review and analyse the Entry in relation to this Challenge;
agree to execute any necessary paperwork to give effect to the rights and licenses granted hereunder;
acknowledges and agree that the Team will not be compensated for the use of the Entry as described in these Rules;
acknowledge that the Organiser, Sponsors or Organiser Admins may have developed or commissioned materials similar to the Entry and waive any claims resulting from any similarities to the Entry;
understand that the Entry may be posted on a public website or social media channel and that Organiser is not responsible for any unauthorised use of the Entry by visitors to such site; and
understand and acknowledge that, subject to provision of Prizes, the Organiser is not obligated to use the Entry in any way, even if the Entry is selected as a winning Entry.

9. Solution Validation and Reporting

Participants may upload up to ten (10) Entry submissions per day in CSV format, subject to revision based on Challenge requirements and available compute resources. Each submission must strictly conform to the specified format to ensure correct leaderboard evaluation, which reflects real-time performance on the test set. Any modifications to submission limits or format requirements will be communicated to participants via email or official community channels.

The Challenge is structured into two rounds, allowing participants to refine their training code if necessary. The timeline for challenge rounds is subject to modification at the Organiser’s discretion. Any amendments to round dates will be communicated in advance to Participants. This approach is intended to minimise the need for recurrent revisions to the official rules document in the event of deadline extensions. To maintain fairness and the integrity of the results, standard AIcrowd competition rules will apply which are as follows:

Code and Model Validation: The top Teams’ Entry that qualify for final consideration will undergo rigorous scrutiny to validate the code and models, ensuring that only the provided dataset has been used.
Dataset limitations: Participants must exclusively train their models using the dataset provided by the Organiser. The use of external datasets is strictly prohibited.
Solution Documentation: Winners must document their methodology thoroughly. The description must be written in English, with mathematical formulae as necessary. The description must be written at a level sufficient for a practitioner in computer science to reproduce the results obtained by the Team. It must describe substantially the training and tuning process to reproduce results independently. This includes a mandatory detailed solution report that could be submitted for publication on arXiv, fostering transparency and contributing to the community's collective knowledge.

In addition, Participants must meet a minimum score threshold to qualify for prize consideration, ensuring that only the most effective solutions are rewarded.

10. Eligibility for prizes, winner selection and notification

Entries will be judged via an algorithm that will generate a score based upon which Entries will be ranked and such ranking will be displayed on the AIcrowd site's Challenge leaderboard ("Leaderboard").

To be eligible for any prizes, the Participant must submit the Entry via the AIcrowd portal, and submit its training code, under the Apache 2.0 license, and submit a detailed solution documentation describing its training process by the Solution Documentation Deadline. Failure to submit both the code and documentation within one week of the Solution Documentation Deadline will disqualify that Entry and additional qualifying entries will be considered for prizes.

The Organiser reserves the right not to award prizes to any winner whose results cannot be reproduced. Winners may be required to submit a high-level explanation of their approach. This could include a concise presentation, such as a 10-minute video overview detailing their methodology and key insights.

If two or more participating Teams have the same primary score, a secondary algorithmic metric will be added to the scores. If two or more Teams have identical primary and secondary scores, then the prize money (whether it is first, second or third place) will be shared evenly among the Teams with those identical scores. Scores will be displayed on the webpage.

Potential winners will be contacted via the email associated with AIcrowd.com account through which the Entry was submitted. If a potential winner cannot be contacted, does not respond as directed, refuses the prize, or is found to be ineligible for any reason, such prize may be forfeited and awarded to an alternate winner. Only one alternate winner will be selected per each prize package, after which prizes will remain unawarded.

To the extent that there is any dispute as to the identity of the potential winner, the official account holder of the email address associated with the AIcrowd account through which the Entry was first submitted will be deemed the official potential winner by the Organiser.

11. Your Odds of Winning

ODDS OF WINNING A PRIZE ARE SUBJECT TO THE TOTAL NUMBER OF ELIGIBLE ENTRIES RECEIVED AND HOW YOUR ENTRY SCORES IN ACCORDANCE TO THE JUDGING CRITERIA.

12. Prizes

The total prize pool is $20,000 AUD. The cash prizes and travel grants are distributed to four Winners.

Leaderboard Prize

Prize	Amount
1st Place	$5,000
2nd Place	$3,000
3rd Place	2 x $1,000

Travel Grant

The travel grant is awarded to the four winning Teams for presenting their solutions in-person at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Energy Technologies for Future Grids (“IEEE ETFG Conference”). This travel grant is to support travel to the IEEE ETFG Conference and is therefore subject to the winners in-person attendance at the IEEE ETFG Conference and will be paid following the IEEE ETFG Conference.

Prize	Amount
1st Place	$5,000
2nd Place	$3,000
3rd Place	2 x $1,000

13. When Will Prizes Be Awarded?

The prizes will be awarded subject to the remainder of these Rules and within six months of the Winners being notified.

Where a winning Team consists of more than one Participant, the prize will be split equally among the Participants of that Team.

The Organiser will in no way be involved in any dispute with respect to receipt of a prize by Participants of a Team.

Only prizes claimed in accordance with these Rules will be awarded. The prize distribution process may take up to six months from the completion of the challenge.

14. Winner List

A list of all winners of this Challenge will be posted on AIcrowd Site and may be announced at Organisers' discretion via Organisers' or Sponsors’ Twitter, Facebook, Blog, or Website, or at an Organiser or Organiser Admins sponsored or hosted event.

15. Your Personal Data and Privacy

By entering this Challenge, you acknowledge that your personal information will be collected and processed by AIcrowd on behalf of the Organiser for the purpose of administering the Challenge. This includes determining winners, contacting entrants, and managing entries.

Please be aware that by participating in this Challenge, your personal information may be processed outside the jurisdiction of the Organiser and AIcrowd, including in jurisdictions which may not have data protection and privacy laws and regulations equivalent to those in your jurisdiction.

The Organiser will use and disclose your personal information only as necessary to conduct the Challenge, including:

to contact you in relation to the Challenge;
to confirm the details of your Entry;
to administer and execute this Challenge, including sharing it with Organiser Admins and/or Sponsors;
to credit you and/or your Team for the Entry, identify you and/or your Team as a Winner, or other similar notice; and
as otherwise noted in these Rules or as necessary for the Organiser to meet their obligations under these Rules or applicable law.

The personal information collected may include your name, email address, and other details relevant to your entry. The specific information required will be outlined at the point of collection.

The Organiser and/or AIcrowd may use cookies and/or collect IP addresses for the purpose of implementing or exercising its rights or obligations under the Rules, for information purposes, identifying your location, including without limitation for the purpose of redirecting you to the appropriate geographic website, if applicable, or for any other lawful purpose.

At the end of the Challenge period, the Organiser will download the data onto a secure platform for ongoing retention (if required) and delete the data held in AIcrowd.

Please refer to the AIcrowd Privacy Policy available at https://www.aicrowd.com/privacy, the UOW Privacy Policy available at https://www.uow.edu.au/privacy/, the CSIRO Privacy Policy available at https://www.csiro.au/en/about/Policies/Privacy, and the Race for 2030 available at https://www.racefor2030.com.au/privacy-policy/ for further information on how your personal information will be handled, including by Sponsors.

16. Additional Terms and Conditions

(a) Verification and auditing

All activities relating to Participant’s participation in the Challenge and material submitted are subject to verification and/or auditing for compliance with these Rules. Participants agree to reasonably cooperate with the Organiser and Organiser Admins concerning verification and/or auditing. If non-compliance with the Rules is identified in this process, the Organiser may suspend or terminate the Participant and its Teams participation in the Challenge.

(b) Third-party terms

This Challenge is administered by AIcrowd on behalf of the Organiser. By participating in the Challenge, you will be required to create an account and submit your entry through AIcrowd’s website and platform. Your use of AIcrowd’s site and services is subject to AIcrowd’s own terms and conditions. By entering this Challenge, you acknowledge and agree to comply with the following AIcrowd terms and conditions, which govern your access to and use the AIcrowd platform.

(c) Interpretation

In the event any clause or provision of these Rules prove unenforceable, void or incomplete, the validity of the other conditions will remain unaffected.

In the event if any inconsistency between these Rules and the terms contained in any policies or documents referenced within these Rules, the terms set out in these Rules take precedence to the extent of that inconsistency.

(d) Relationship

By participating in the Challenge you acknowledge that no confidential, fiduciary, or employment relationship exists between you and the Organiser, Sponsors or Organiser Admins.

(e) No compensation

You acknowledge that similar or identical ideas may be submitted by other Participants or Teams and you are not entitled to any compensation as a result of the Organiser and Organiser Admins use of material containing such similarities.

(f) Disclaimers

The Organiser and Organiser Admins, are not responsible for the following:

lost, late, stolen, incomplete, damaged, garbled, destroyed, misdirected transmissions or Entries;
unauthorised access to or alteration of Entries or related materials;
failed or unavailable hardware, network, software or telephone transmissions;
damage to your or any person’s computer and/or its contents related to or resulting from participation in this Challenge; and
disqualified Entries submitted in violation of these Rules.

The Organiser reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel or suspend this Challenge should:

virus, bugs, fraud, hacking, or other causes corrupt the administration, security, or proper play of the Challenge, or
the Organiser does not receive a minimum of two qualified entries from separate Participants;
the Organiser be prevented, in any manner whatsoever, from holding this Challenge due to any present or future law (whether or not valid); any act of God, natural disasters, epidemic or pandemic; any civil disturbance or armed conflict or any other cause outside of the Organiser’s reasonable control.

In all such cases, notice to this effect will be posted on the Challenge Site and prizes to the extent awarded will be awarded at the Organiser’s discretion based on valid Entries received prior to cancellation.

(g) Additional prize conditions

All prizes awarded in connection with the Challenge are non-transferable. No prize substitutions are allowed.

Except where prohibited by law, all federal, state, provincial or other tax liabilities are the responsibility of the prize winners. The Organiser is not responsible for any tax deductions which may be necessary and the Organiser reserves the right to withhold taxes as required by law.

Prize winners will be responsible for paying all costs and expenses related to the prize that are not specifically mentioned, including, but not limited to taxes and withholdings, and any other expenses that might reasonably be incurred by the winner in receiving or using the prize.

To receive prizes, winners must submit tax documentation to the Organiser as required by law. Failure to provide complete and accurate documentation the prize may results in forfeiture of the prize and the Organiser may, in its sole discretion, select an alternate winner.

Designation as a prize winner is subject to the winning Participant’s and their Team’s proof of compliance with these Rules, continued eligibility and approval by the Organiser.

17. Liability and release

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, you agree that the Organiser, Sponsors and Organiser Admins, and each of their directors, officers, employees, agents and assigns, will not be liable for personal injuries, death, damages, expenses or costs or losses of any kind resulting from participation or inability to participate in this Challenge or acceptance of or use or inability to use a prize or parts thereof including, without limitation, claims, suits, injuries, losses and damages related to personal injuries, death, damage to or destruction of property, rights of publicity or privacy, defamation or portrayal in a false light (whether intentional or unintentional), whether under a theory of contract, tort (including negligence), warranty or other theory.

If, for any reason, the Challenge is not capable of running as planned, the Organiser reserve the right in its sole discretion to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Challenge, subject to any directions from a regulatory authority.

You release from, and indemnify the Organiser, Sponsors and Organiser Admins, and each of their directors, officers, employees, agents and assigns against, all liability, cost, loss, or expense arising out of acceptance of any prize(s) or participation in this Challenge including any participation in the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Energy Technologies for Future Grids, including (but not limited to) personal injury and damage to property and whether direct or consequential, foreseeable, due to some negligent act or omission or otherwise.

18. Governing law and jurisdiction

This Official Rules are governed by the law applicable to the State of New South Wales, Australia, and the parties submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the State of New South Wales.

Flextrack Challenge 2025

Challenge Rules