Hi,
I was excited about this challenge and looking forward to enter… until I read carefully the official rules:
You are NOT a resident of Quebec, Canada; Brazil; or Italy;
I’m resident in Italy and I read I can’t enter the challenge.
Anyway, I’d like some clarifications: why is Italy not allowed?
I mean, other european countries are allowed to enter (e.g. France, Spain, etc.) and all of them are under European Union, we share the same currency, we all have access to Google Cloud Platform, we are not prohibited under the U.S. Export Regulations, etc.
So, why excluding Italy?
Please share some informations about why you needed to apply this rule, I think excluding a country without any explanations is not fair.
I hope there will be better opportunities for Italy residents in future challenges.
Thanks a lot,
Dario
I apologize for the restriction and disappointment. This was a legal requirement, as holding a contest in these countries required an additional registration process with the country that we were not able to perform. Because each country has their own rules/fees/timelines, it was infeasible to meet all of the requirements by the launch deadline for the Obstacle Tower Challenge. We (at Unity) hope to be able to hold contests in the future where as many people can compete as possible.
I also personally hope that you will still give Obstacle Tower a try, and let us know what you think of it as a research benchmark.
You are NOT a resident of the Crimea region of the Ukraine, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, or Syria, due to U.S. Export Regulations (and any other regions or countries prohibited under the U.S. Export Regulations );
This rule is only for team lead? or all team members should not be from this regions?
Thank you arthurj for your reply, I understand you had problems with Italian buracracy about contests and prizes.
Besides authorization, there are additional costs related (e.g. you need a notary in Italy, a deposit is needed to guarantee prizes and so on).
Sadly it’s a mess, I can confirm it.
I don’t know regulations for other countries, but I presume they are simpler.
Anyway, I hope Unity (and AIcrowd) will address these issues in near future and find a way to allow residents in Italy to enter challenges, or we all will be excluded forever.
Hosting a competition in Italy maybe is not easy, but not impossible and once the difficulties are overcome, the path will always be the same.
Probably getting in touch with a local web agency will be enough to delegate all “papers” needed every time, with a fixed cost that can be considered in the budget.
I suppose the same could be applied with other countries where difficulties are related to buracracy (I fear nothing can be done where U.S. contests are not allowed at all).
Anyway I do not blame you for our complicated laws, I just want to know why Italy was excluded and I hope something will change, since there are difficulties, but no blocking regulations.