General Rules
Projects must be submitted by March 19th 2027.
Entries must be made by a UK or Eire school, college, librarian, trainer, parent or guardian on behalf of teams of up to three students.
Entries may be made by international teams by prior arrangement with TeenTech Charity. Please email [email protected].
All students must be UK or Eire students in year groups 7-11 or 12-13 or the equivalent in April 2027. There will be two age groups for judging 11-16 (Years 7-11) and 17-19 (Years 12-13).
A UK team may collaborate with an international team. The UK team is responsible for managing the entry.
Projects must not previously have entered into any national or international competition
Categories
Schools may enter more than one team in each category (except for our cross-category awards, details below), but you must be aware that, for Years 7-11, only one team from each school can progress to the finals in any one category. For Years 12-13, schools may enter up to 10 teams in each category.
Cross-Categories
If your project demonstrates skills applicable to Creative and Digital Media, Digital and Data Skills, Best Use of AI, and Ethical and Responsible Innovation, it will be eligible for our cross-category awards. TeenTech will consider all projects for entry into our cross-category awards where the criteria for those categories have been met. You will also be able to submit projects to any of our cross-categories when you submit your projects, if you wish.
General Rules
Please read the rules carefully.
Entries must be made by a UK, Eire, or International school, or by a parent/guardian on behalf of individual entries and for teams of up to 3 students.
All students must be UK, Eire, or International students in years 7-11 or 12-13, or the equivalent, in April 2027.
A UK team may collaborate with an international team and vice versa. The UK team is responsible for managing the entry.
A UK team may be made up of students from different UK schools.
Projects must not previously have been entered the final of any national or international competition. After the TeenTech final, teams are encouraged to submit their Awards projects to other national and international competitions, but we ask that TeenTech is very clearly referenced.
Schools may enter multiple projects in each category. You may also ask for an element of your entries to be considered where appropriate for our Creative and Digital Media, Digital and Data Skills, Best Use of AI, and Ethical and Responsible Innovation categories.
It is possible that some categories may become oversubscribed, and TeenTech may have to restrict the number of entries for these categories.
There will be one winning team in each category. Every finalist team member will receive a certificate, and every winning team will receive a trophy.
Winners will be announced at the TeenTech Awards ceremony in June 2027.
A full list of prize winners will be published on the TeenTech website following the Awards ceremony.
By entering the competition, entrants will be deemed to have agreed to be bound by these General Rules.
All TeenTech Awards entries must be the entrant’s own original work. Plagiarism, copying, or submitting work created by others is strictly prohibited.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools may be used to support research, fact-finding, brainstorming, and referencing. However, the project itself must be conceived, developed, and completed primarily by the entrant. Excessive reliance on AI-generated content or solutions may result in the entry being disqualified.
Where students have collaborated closely with a company or mentor, the entry must clearly indicate how the company or mentor has supported the team, how it has contributed to the product build and design, how the students have contributed to the final product, and that schools have verified their work.
TeenTech will treat information submitted to it for the competition purely for the purposes of running the competition. This information will not be provided to any third parties other than a panel of judges chosen by TeenTech.
By entering this competition you are agreeing to the condition that you will attend the TeenTech Awards Ceremony and present if selected.
Schools, Colleges, Libraries and individuals registering for the TeenTech Awards agree to allow TeenTech to reference their name(s) on the TeenTech website and on other marketing material and to allow TeenTech to use any images for promotional purposes.
Team-Specific Rules
Teams can be made up of a maximum of three students from UK, EIRE or International schools.
Teams may seek feedback on aspects of their project from an unlimited number of students, mentors, academic institutions and companies in or outside the UK. Please note that only the original team of three may attend the final.
Team members must be in year groups 7-11 or 12-13 (or the equivalent overseas) at the date of entry submission.
Schools may enter as many teams as they like in each category.
A team may be entered in only one category; they cannot be entered in multiple categories, except in cross-categories.
A student may only be a member of one team.
Teacher/Technician/Librarian of the Year Award
- Teachers will automatically be considered for an Award. When students submit their electronic projects in March, teachers or students should submit a short (under 400 words) report on how they have run the Awards in their school, college or library and the benefits to pupils.
- A teacher, technician, librarian or youth leader may be considered for the Teacher of the Year Award whether or not one of their teams is selected for the final.
- Students can also nominate a teacher they would like to be considered and should submit their reasons why in the Stage 2 form.
Finalists will be invited to The IET and asked to give a short presentation to judges describing how they supported and guided students through their project planning and development.
Stage 2 Project Submissions
Work as a team to create a TeenTech Awards project and supporting documents or media summarising why your idea is innovative, what makes it work, what the market is, and how people would use it and buy it. The supporting documents may contain up to 15 A4 pages and should be uploaded as a file of no more than 8MB in Microsoft Word/PowerPoint or Adobe PDF format.
If your entry includes a video, please upload to Vimeo or YouTube and provide a link.
Please see the TeenTech Awards Project
We’ve provided a TeenTech Project Development Guide. Please refer to this to see what should be included in order to be successful.
Teachers: If you wish to be considered for Teacher of the Year, the short 400-word report on how you have run the Awards should be uploaded at the same time.
The TeenTech website has a Stage 2 upload form to help you submit your entry.
Intellectual Property
All submissions must be original work.
We have created a Confidentiality Agreement that schools should ask contributing mentors to sign to help protect your idea if it turns out to be a world-beater. You can download a copy here.
If schools or students are concerned about protecting any intellectual property they might have created, the concern should be discussed among students, teachers, and/or the relevant business mentor, as appropriate, to understand the implications of sharing this information with a wide audience. Schools may choose to make certain details available only to the TeenTech judging panel. When collaborating or seeking feedback on projects with schools outside the UK, this should be considered.
Judges
All judges will be appointed by TeenTech CIC/TeenTech Charity.
The judges will not enter into any discussion about judging entries.
All decisions by judges are final.