Pursuant to a public-private partnership agreement, THE ORGANISERS – Fomento San Sebastián, El Diario Vasco, Tecnun and in conjunction with Multiverse Computing – hereby announce the first DONOSTIA MEETING MINDS, for university students and the purpose is to identify, award and showcase the most innovative projects in the above areas. The competition will be held in San Sebastián, a city that is internationally recognised for its firm commitment to knowledge, advance research and innovation as drivers for economic and social developments.
This document establishes the Terms and Conditions of the DONOSTIA MEETING MINDS International Science, Technology and Innovation Competition.
Donostia Meeting Minds seeks to foster young talent, drive innovative solutions for global challenges and foster knowledge sharing among universities, research centres, companies and societies. Furthermore, the aim is to foster scientific and technological thought, along with the creative and entrepreneurial mindset of the students, by driving the development of projects that generate environmental, economic and social value.
Furthermore, the competition is set up as a space for meeting and dialogue among universities, research centres, public entities and citizens, by encouraging the sharing of knowledge, experiences and best practices among different stakeholders of the innovation ecosystem. This intersectoral and multidisciplinary interaction is essential to enrich the projects, broaden their perspectives and bolster collaboration as a driver of progress.
These terms and conditions seek to govern the open international competition geared toward identifying innovative projects in science, technology and innovation, developed by university students and impacting social and technological areas.
The specific goals of this competition are to:
The competition is structured around two categories:
Projects that apply artificial intelligence technologies to address positive impact challenges in society: health, environment, inclusion, wellbeing, education or other areas of collective interest.
Description of the challenge: the teams must design an AI solution for a challenge of the city of San Sebastián and provide proof of its social impact.
Projects that use artificial intelligence as a tool to transform business models, generate new entrepreneurship opportunities or to boost technological and scientific research.
Challenge: Intelligent Optimisation with AI.
Description of the challenge: Teams must design an AI solution for a real business optimisation problem (e.g. supply chain, financial portfolio, logistics or energy networks), and demonstrating the advantage over conventional methods.
The competition is open to undergraduate, master’s and PhD students from any university, country or discipline, who are enrolled at the time of entering.
Entry is voluntary and free-of-charge. The organisers reserve the right to check that all the competitors are actively a university student at the time of entering.
The composition of the teams must comply with the following criteria:
If a team is shortlisted for the in-person final, the organisers will pay the logistics costs for those that are from outside the province of Gipuzkoa.
Period: 15 May to 11 October.
During this period, interested teams must formalise their entry at donostiameetingminds.com and send the project and video by email to info@donostiameetingminds.com.
Teams must submit the following documentation within the established deadlines:
Projects are to be entered in English, Spanish and/or Basque.
If, once the organisers have checked all the documentation, it is seen that it is not duly completed or a document is missing, the competitor will be asked to correct the fault or provide the necessary documents within two (2) working days; failure to do so will result in the entry being excluded, with no other formality being required.
The organisers may request clarifications about the project report if deemed appropriate.
Competitors may request further information or send in queries by writing to info@donostiameetingminds.com, indicating as the subject: ‘Donostia Meeting Minds’
Organisers will arrange a series of support workshops run by Fomento de San Sebastián, Tecnun and Multiverse Computing for the entered teams, in order to support them in the development and presentation of their entries.
The workshops will be geared to offering competitors tools, knowledge and expert mentoring in different key areas to roll out their projects, including:
Attendance at the workshops will be voluntary, even though they are recommended for all the teams given their valuable training and mentoring input.
The workshops will run remotely and/or in person and are expected to be held between June and September. Organisers may contact the entered teams to inform them in a timely manner of the final dates, times, format and content of each of the workshops; using the official channels set up for the programme and the information will also be available at donostiameetingminds.com.
Period: 13-14 October.
During this phase, the entries received will be assessed by a multidisciplinary professional and academic jury, made up of:
The jury will select the finalist projects for the in-person final event. The projects will be assessed according to the following appraisal criteria:
The organisers may arrange an interview to learn about the project and the development team in greater detail, and to corroborate the initial assessment of the project according to the above criteria.
The jury’s decision is final and cannot be appealed.
The organisers will announce the finalist teams on 16 October 2026 by email to the address provided on the entry form and they will also be posted at donostiameetingminds.com.
Should they disagree with the decision, the teams should contact the Organisers at info@donostiameetingminds.com, who will explain the procedures to be followed.
The in-person final event will be held in San Sebastián on 2 November. The finalist teams will there have 5 minutes to defend their project and 3 minutes to answer the questions put by the jury.
During the event, a professional jury will assess the presentation of the projects. The criteria to be used to assess the City Category projects will be as follows::
And for the Business Category projects:
All the finalist teams will be given a presentation template with the required sections to be developed; along with guidance on their content and structure, in order to guarantee clarity, coherence and uniformity in the project expositions.
The winning team of each of the categories will be officially announced at that event.
On the day of the event, additional recognition awards will be given from among all the entries to the competition; the aim is to spotlight those projects that stand out for their innovation, impact or quality, regardless of the main categories established, thus fostering greater participation and excellence among the entered initiatives.
The competition prizes are as follows:
A trip to Boston for all the members of the winning team of each category (City Category and Business Category).
General terms and conditions of the prizes:
Pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and Council, of 27 April 2016 (General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR), as well as in the Spanish Data Protection and Guarantee of Digital Rights Act 3/2018, of 5 December, competitors are hereby informed that the personal data provided by taking part in the Donostia Meeting Minds competition will be processed by SOCIEDAD VASCONGADA DE PUBLICACIONES, S.A., whose registered office is in Donostia-San Sebastián at Mikeletegi Pasealekua nº 1, as the data controller.
The purpose of the processing will be the comprehensive management of all its phases, including the registration, assessment of the entries, running of workshops, holding the final event, prize ceremony and any other actions linked to their correct organisation and implementation.
When so indicated in these Terms and Conditions or on the entry forms, providing certain personal data will be mandatory. Failure to supply that data, or providing incomplete or inaccurate data, may prevent the correct processing of the entry application.
The personal data may be communicated –solely and exclusively to comply with the purposes described herein – to the competition partners: Tecnun – School of Engineering at Navarre University, Fomento de San Sebastián and Multiverse Computing, and in those cases arising from managing the image rights or when there is a legal obligation.
Furthermore, in order to provide the prize consisting of a trip to Boston, they may perform the strictly necessary international data transfers to the United States to organise the trip (transport, accommodation and destination institution), while always applying the appropriate guarantees envisaged in Chapter V of the GDPR.
The personal data will be kept for the necessary time to comply with the purposes for which they were gathered, as well as during the legally required time periods to meet possible responsibilities arising from the processing.
Competitors may exercise at any time their rights of access, rectification, erasure, objection and limitation of the processing and portability of their data, by writing to protecciondedatos@diariovasco.com.
You can find additional and detailed information on the privacy policy at Vocento Privacy Policy. You can find additional information on the aforementioned personal data processing at www.vocento.com/politica-privacidad
Capturing and dissemination during the final event.
Taking part in the in-person final event of the competition, which will be held in San Sebastián, involves capturing, reproducing and disseminating the image and voice of the competitors, by means of photographs, videos and streaming, along with their communication through the official channels of the competition and of the partner media for information purposes and to cover the event. Such processing is covered by accepting these terms and conditions (Art. 6.1.b GDPR) and by the public interest of disseminating the activity (Art. 6.1.e GDPR), given the open and public nature of the event, which will be duly announced.
Subsequent promotional use
Any subsequent use of the image and voice of the competitors for promotional, advertising or institutional communication purposes other than for covering the event itself (campaigns, corporate materials, testimonials, social media outside the context of the event, etc.) will require the express consent of the data subject (Art. 6.1.a GDPR), which will be gather in a specific and differentiated manner; such consent may be withdrawn at any time without that affecting the legality of the processing prior to the withdrawing of the consent.
The projects entered are the property of their authors. Taking part in the competition implies ceding to the organisers the right to reproduce, disseminate and publicly communicate the finalist entries for educational and scientific dissemination purposes and to promote the event, without that involving any additional monetary compensation for the competitors.
Participating in Donostia Meeting Minds entails the full and unconditional acceptance of these terms & conditions. The organisers reserve the right to settle any situation not envisaged herein, as well as to modify the format, dates or conditions of the event for justified reasons, and duly notifying the competitors.
Competitors may address any query through the communication channels set up by the organisers.