Our client is a renowned international awards foundation, established with the mission to honor outstanding scientific and technological research and achievements that address humanity’s greatest challenges. With a total prize value of up to $4.5 million annually, it is one of the largest scientific awards globally, having celebrated luminaries such as Professor Yoshua Bengio, Professor Geoffrey Hinton, Professor Jensen Huang, Professor Yann LeCun, and numerous other distinguished researchers.

Challenges

Our client is committed to honoring groundbreaking scientific and technological innovations that bring significant benefits to humanity. With a global reach and a mission to foster revolutionary initiatives, the awards program attracts nearly 1,500 nominations from over 80 countries and territories, with over 9,000 scientists serving as nominating partners. However, they face unique challenges in managing and organizing this prestigious awards program, including:
Difficulties in organizing and storing nominations
The absence of a unified system for storing and organizing nominations results in submissions being sent through various channels such as email, attachments, or physical documents. This leads to a chaotic management process. Judges face challenges in locating the scientific research associated with each nominee, wasting time and increasing the risk of errors during the evaluation process.
Assigning submissions to judges
Large-scale competitions often involve a panel of judges with diverse areas of expertise. Distributing submissions to appropriate judges while ensuring a balanced workload is a complex task. Without a supporting system, this process can easily result in imbalances or misallocations, affecting the judges’ efficiency and the fairness of the process.
Scoring and compiling results
Managing scores and aggregating data from thousands of scientific studies is a time-intensive process prone to errors. Judges encounter challenges such as:

• Accurate scoring and record-keeping
• Compiling data from multiple judges to generate final results
• Ensuring transparency and fairness in the evaluation process

Industry Statistics (based on global awards programs):

• 75% of organizations struggle to manage workload when the number of submissions doubles each year.
• 50% of scoring errors arise from manual compilation processes or lack of synchronization among judges.
• 30% of submissions are invalid due to missing information or failure to follow the required format, leading to time-consuming checks and processing.

These challenges demand a comprehensive, highly automated, and customizable solution to meet the specific needs of the organization.

Solution

To address these issues, Evotek – a leading technology company specializing in custom software development – has created an award management system. This solution is automated, synchronized, and intelligent, fully meeting the needs of managing and organizing large-scale awards.
Centralized storage and management system: The software provides a single platform to store and organize all submissions and nominations, eliminating data fragmentation.

• Integrated online upload tool: Contestants can submit their entries directly through the system in a standardized format. The system automatically checks the validity of submissions (correct format, required information) and notifies users immediately of any errors, reducing manual review work.
• Secure data storage: All submissions are categorized and stored on a digital platform, making it easy for the organizing team to manage and access information at any time.

Smart and even distribution of nominations: The software supports automatic allocation of nominations based on the expertise and workload of each judge.

• Automated distribution: Based on criteria such as area of expertise, workload, or the number of submissions already reviewed, the system ensures fairness and efficiency in distributing the submissions
• Flexible customization: The organizing team can set up or adjust the criteria for distributing submissions to meet the specific needs of each competition.

Efficient and transparent grading support: The system integrates smart grading tools, helping minimize errors and ensuring transparency during the grading process

• Online grading sheet: Judges enter scores directly into the system through a user-friendly interface, designed according to pre-established grading criteria.
• Tracking and auditing: Judges’ grading activities are logged in detail, providing a transparent basis for any necessary explanations.
• Tracking and auditing: Judges’ grading activities are recorded in detail, creating a transparent foundation for any necessary clarifications.

Automated reporting and result aggregation

• Quick result reporting: After grading is completed, the system automatically generates result reports in visually intuitive and easy-to-understand formats.
• Customizable reports: Clients can customize how the results are presented to meet specific requirements.
• Transparent disclosure: The software supports the accurate and transparent publication of results, enhancing trust from contestants and the public.

Enhanced security and risk minimization

• Data encryption: Ensures that all contestant and nomination information is protected from unauthorized access.
• Activity tracking: The system records the complete history of actions on the platform, helping to control and prevent fraud.

Result

With the software system developed by Evotek, our client’s competition organization and grading processes have been significantly optimized. The automation of various processes has led to a substantial reduction in the competition’s organization time, from 10 weeks to just 6 weeks, representing a 40% reduction. Judges can now fully focus on evaluating the quality of submissions instead of dealing with complex administrative tasks.
Not only does the software save time, but it also offers superior accuracy and transparency. Thanks to the intelligent grading sheet, the error rate in score aggregation has been reduced to 0%, showing a 13% improvement compared to the previous process. Additionally, security has been notably enhanced. The software’s robust security system has fully protected the data throughout the competition, with no incidents of data leakage.
Moreover, the software has opened up opportunities for future growth. The system’s exceptional scalability was demonstrated by its ability to handle a 50% increase in the number of scientists in just the first year of use. This has allowed the organizing team to not only maintain but also strengthen its leadership position in managing large-scale global competitions.
The award management software has not only resolved current challenges but also laid the foundation for continuous improvement and professionalization of the client’s organization process in the future.