Privacy Notice

1. Who we are

The PhD Challenge is a national platform for South African PhD graduates, convened by the Business Incubation Web Association (BIWA) with GrowthWheel® SA, Nelson Mandela University and Allan & Gill Gray Philanthropies, and hosted as part of the 3rd Annual BIWA Conference in East London.

The responsible party for the personal information described here is the PhD Challenge, acting through its Data Governance Team.

2. What we collect, and why

Personal information collected through the pre-screening registration form, this website and the programme itself is limited to what is necessary for eligibility assessment, screening, event administration, judging, communication and programme development. We do not collect personal information for unrelated purposes.

In practice this means your name and contact details, your institution and doctoral qualification, a description of your research and its enterprise potential, and any access, dietary, travel or documentation preferences you tell us about.

3. Our lawful basis for processing

Processing is conducted on the basis of your consent, obtained at application. Where consent is not the applicable basis, processing rests on the legitimate interest necessary to administer the competition — for example, internal eligibility verification. You may withdraw consent at any time using the contact details in section 9; withdrawing consent may mean we can no longer process your application.

4. Who else sees your information

Participant research profiles or contact details may be shared with universities, funders, investors, industry partners, incubators, government bodies, GrowthWheel® or other designated programme partners — strictly where necessary for an identified programme purpose, and subject to applicable consent and purpose-limitation requirements.

Your information is never sold, and never shared for unrelated commercial purposes.

Registration form data is collected and stored by our registration provider under their own terms and security arrangements. Our website loads typefaces from Google Fonts, which may record your IP address as part of serving those files.

5. Who has day-to-day access

Day-to-day access is limited to the PhD Challenge Data Governance Team, and is granted only where necessary for programme delivery. Screening Committee members and judges see application material only for assessment purposes, and must declare any actual, potential or perceived conflict of interest before reviewing applications.

6. How long we keep it

Applicant and participant information is retained for 12 months from the date of application, after which it is securely deleted or anonymised — except where retention is required by law, or where you have separately consented to longer retention, such as inclusion in an alumni or ecosystem database.

7. Your rights

Under POPIA you may:

• ask what personal information we hold about you, and request a copy;
• ask us to correct or delete information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out of date or obtained unlawfully;
• object to the processing of your information;
• withdraw your consent, or withdraw your application entirely;
• complain to the Information Regulator of South Africa.

Requests are acknowledged and actioned as soon as reasonably possible in accordance with POPIA. There is no charge for making a request.

8. Security and data breaches

We apply reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against loss, unauthorised access and unlawful processing. Any data breach, unauthorised disclosure or conflict of interest affecting participant information is assessed and, where required, reported to the Information Regulator and to affected data subjects as soon as reasonably possible after discovery, in line with section 22 of POPIA.

9. Event photography, filming and recording

Pitches, sessions and general proceedings at the PhD Challenge are photographed and filmed for event documentation, our post-event report, and promotional use on our website and social media channels. If you would prefer not to appear in published photographs, video or livestream footage, tell us on the pre-registration form or write to us, and we will flag your preference with the event team in advance.

10. Your intellectual property

Participation does not transfer, license, waive or in any way diminish your intellectual property rights. The PhD Challenge claims no ownership, licence or right of first refusal over any participant's IP. Where your research arose from publicly funded R&D at a South African institution, any disclosure or assignment obligations under the IPR Act (2008) and your university's TTO or NIPMO framework remain between you and your institution.

11. Contact us

Privacy requests and questions about this notice — our Information Officer:
privacy@phdchallenge.org.za

Anything else about the Challenge:
pitch@phdchallenge.org.za