Terms & Services

By registering for, accessing, or participating in the Uganda DNS Hackathon ("the Hackathon"), pre-hackathon technical bootcamps, or any associated digital portals operated by the Uganda DNS Forum and Infinity Computers & Communications Company (i3C / .UG Registry), you agree to be bound by these Terms & Services.

• Eligibility: Participation is open to software developers, network and systems engineers, cybersecurity researchers, university students, academic faculty, and digital policy analysts residing in Uganda or collaborating within the East African Internet ecosystem.
• Team Composition: Applicants may register as part of a squad of 2 to 4 members using an official UGDNS-XXXX team invite code, or apply individually to be matched into a balanced multi-disciplinary team during Day 1 orientation.

All competing squads must align their prototypes, research, or policy frameworks with one of the 6 Official Challenge Tracks designated by the Uganda DNS Forum Technical Committee:

• Track 01 — DNS Infrastructure Reliability: Anycast failover, recursive resolver uptime, and BGP/IXP resilience.
• Track 02 — DNSSEC Adoption & Trust: Automated KSK/ZSK signing, DS record validation, and registrar tooling for the .ug namespace.
• Track 03 — Local Content & Latency Optimization: UIXP peering, smart caching resolvers, and sovereign traffic localization.
• Track 04 — DNS Policy, Regulation & Governance: Fair domain dispute resolution, registrant protection, and WHOIS/RDAP privacy balance.
• Track 05 — DNS Security & Threat Mitigation: Real-time detection of DNS tunneling, cache poisoning, DGA botnets, and phishing.
• Track 06 — Universal Acceptance (IDN & EAI): Multilingual domain support (IDNA2008) and internationalized email (SMTPUTF8) readiness.

The Uganda DNS Hackathon exists to foster open, deployable innovations that strengthen Uganda’s national Internet infrastructure:

• Original Work: All core code, hardware configurations, telemetry dashboards, and policy briefs must be created or substantially engineered during the official 5-day hackathon sprint. Pre-existing open-source libraries, RFC reference implementations (e.g., BIND9, Unbound, Knot, PowerDNS), and public datasets may be used provided they are transparently attributed.
• Participant Ownership & Open-Source License: Participating teams retain intellectual property rights over their original creations. However, to qualify for national awards and .UG Registry technical incubation, teams must publish their hackathon repositories under an OSI-approved open-source license (such as MIT, Apache-2.0, or BSD-3-Clause) or Creative Commons attribution for policy deliverables.
• Ecosystem Showcase Rights: Participants grant the Uganda DNS Forum, i3C, and partner institutions a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual license to test, demonstrate, archive, and showcase submitted prototypes across public reports and future DNS Forum events.

Because participants work directly with DNS resolvers, zone files, cryptographic keys, and network telemetry, strict adherence to cybersecurity ethics is mandatory:

• Authorized Sandboxes Only: All vulnerability testing, packet capture, DNSSEC rollover simulations, and load testing must be performed strictly within the isolated lab sandboxes, test zones, and virtual networks provisioned for the Hackathon.
• Prohibited Conduct: Unauthorized scanning, denial-of-service (DoS/DDoS) amplification, cache poisoning attempts, or probing against production .ug authoritative name servers, Ugandan ISPs, government portals, or third-party infrastructure is strictly prohibited and will result in immediate disqualification.
• Credential Confidentiality: Any temporary API tokens, EPP registrar test credentials, or RIPE Atlas/UIXP telemetry feeds provided during the sprint must not be shared outside your registered team.

The Uganda DNS Forum is committed to maintaining a respectful, inclusive, and harassment-free environment at Legacy Towers, the UIXP Hub, regional university nodes, and all virtual collaboration channels:

• Participants, mentors, judges, and organizers must treat all community members with professional respect regardless of gender, academic background, experience level, disability, or institutional affiliation.
• Plagiarism, sabotage of another team’s repository or sandbox environment, or misrepresentation of project authorship will result in immediate removal from the Hackathon.

Submitted projects are evaluated by an independent multi-stakeholder jury comprising senior engineers and policy leaders from the .UG Registry (i3C), UCC, ICANN, AfTLD, ISOC Uganda, and RENU across four equally weighted pillars:

• Technical Execution & Completeness (25%): Working code, RFC standards compliance, and architectural soundness.
• Ugandan DNS Ecosystem Impact (25%): Direct applicability to solving real latency, security, or adoption challenges in Uganda.
• Innovation & Practicality (25%): Creativity of the engineering or regulatory approach and ease of deployment.
• Demo & Documentation Quality (25%): Clarity of the 5–7 minute live pitch, GitHub README documentation, and reproducibility.
• All jury scores and award determinations—including selection for .UG Registry technical incubation and national awards—are final.

Official hackathon sessions, keynotes, mentoring clinics, and Demo Day presentations are photographed and recorded by the Uganda DNS Forum Secretariat:

• Media Consent: By attending in-person or virtual sessions, participants consent to the use of event photographs, video recordings, and project summaries in official Uganda DNS Forum publications, press releases, and educational archives.
• Limitation of Liability: All hackathon testbeds, APIs, and venue facilities are provided on an "as-is" basis. The Uganda DNS Forum, i3C, and event sponsors shall not be liable for any personal equipment loss, service interruption, or indirect damages arising from participation.

These Terms & Services are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Uganda. Any questions regarding eligibility, intellectual property, or event governance should be directed to the Uganda DNS Forum Secretariat at 8th Floor Block B, Legacy Towers, Kyaggwe Road, Kampala, Uganda or via email at info@dnsforum.ug.