Terms of Service

GinCode is a platform where organisers run hackathons and coding competitions and developers take part in them. We provide the software: registration, payments, submissions, judging, leaderboards and certificates. GinCode is based in Kampala, Uganda, and can be reached at gincode@gmail.com.

Events are run by their organisers, not by us, unless an event is explicitly marked as run by GinCode. The organiser sets the rules, the theme, the judging criteria, the prizes and the deadlines, and the organiser is responsible for honouring them. We are not a party to your agreement with an organiser.

• You must be at least 13 to hold an account, and at least 18 to pay an entry fee or receive prize money.
• Give accurate details. An account in a false name may be suspended and its results voided.
• One person, one account. Additional accounts made to enter an event more than once will be removed.
• You are responsible for what happens under your account and for keeping your password safe. Tell us at gincode@gmail.com if you think it has been compromised.

• Some events are free and some charge an entry fee. The fee is shown on the event page before you commit, and it is charged in the currency stated there — usually Ugandan shillings (UGX).
• Payment is taken through our payment provider by mobile money or card. A registration is only confirmed once payment succeeds; until then your place is not held.
• If a payment fails you may retry it. If you are charged twice for the same registration, contact gincode@gmail.com and we will refund the duplicate.
• Where a referral code or discount applies, it is applied at registration and cannot be added afterwards.

• If an event is cancelled, entry fees are refunded to the payment method you used.
• If an organiser materially changes an event after you have paid — for example moving the dates or removing the advertised prize — you may request a refund before the event starts.
• Otherwise entry fees are non-refundable once registration closes, because your place has been held and capacity denied to someone else. Before registration closes, contact gincode@gmail.com and we will consider the request.
• Refunds go back to the original payment method and typically settle within 14 days.

You keep ownership of everything you build. Entering a competition does not transfer your copyright to us or to the organiser.

• You grant us a licence to host, display and process your submission so that it can be judged, ranked and shown on the platform, and to show your project name, team name and result publicly.
• You confirm the work is yours to submit — that you have the rights to it, that it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that any third-party code or assets are used within their licences.
• An organiser may ask for additional rights as a condition of a prize. Any such term is between you and the organiser and must be stated in the event rules before you enter.
• Once the submission deadline passes, submissions are locked and cannot be edited.

• Submissions are scored by an AI judging panelagainst the criteria the organiser published, and may also be reviewed by human judges. Registering for an event is your agreement to this method of judging.
• To be judged, your repository link must be reachable. A private or broken link may be scored as incomplete.
• Results are published by the organiser and, once published, are final. If you believe there has been a factual error — a missed submission, a broken link we could have fetched — raise it with the organiser within 7 days of publication.
• We do not guarantee that any particular score, rank or piece of feedback is free of error, and AI-generated feedback may contain mistakes.

• Prizes are offered and funded by the organiser. Their nature, size and conditions are set out on the event page.
• To be paid you must give valid payout details. We are not liable for money sent to payout details you entered incorrectly.
• Taxes on winnings are yours to declare and pay.
• A prize may be withheld or reclaimed if the winning entry is later found to breach these terms or the event rules.

Certificates we issue can be verified publicly by their ID. We may revoke a certificate if the result behind it is voided for cheating or a breach of these terms, and a revoked certificate will show as invalid on its verification page.

• You are responsible for your event: its rules, its conduct, its judging criteria and paying out the prizes you advertised.
• You must have the right to use every logo, brand and sponsor name you put on your event page.
• We retain a 10% platform fee on entry-fee revenue collected through GinCode. The remaining 90% is credited to your organisation balance and may be withdrawn to your verified payout details.
• Withdrawals are processed manually and may be held while a payment dispute or fraud check is open.
• Participant data you receive through the platform may only be used to run your event. Using it for unrelated marketing, or selling it, ends your access.
• If you cancel an event, participants must be refunded.

• Submit work that is not yours, or that you do not have the rights to submit.
• Create multiple accounts, use another person’s account, or manipulate referral rewards or leaderboard position.
• Attempt to influence, bypass or reverse-engineer the judging process, including by placing instructions in a repository or write-up intended to manipulate an AI judge.
• Upload malware, or content that is unlawful, harassing, hateful or sexually explicit.
• Attack, overload, scrape at scale, or probe the security of the platform without our written permission.
• Impersonate GinCode, an organiser, a sponsor or a judge.

Breaching this section may cost you your submission, your result, your prize, or your account.

We work to keep GinCode running, but we provide it “as is” and do not promise uninterrupted or error-free service. We may change, suspend or discontinue features. Where a change materially affects a paid event already under way, we will tell affected users.

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything that cannot lawfully be limited.

Subject to that, we are not liable for lost profits, lost opportunity, lost data or indirect loss, and our total liability to you for any claim is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or UGX 200,000.

We are not liable for an organiser’s conduct, including an unpaid or reduced prize, a cancelled event or a changed rule. We will help you reach the organiser and may suspend organisers who do not honour their events.

You may close your account at any time. We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms, and where the breach is not serious we will warn you first. Sections that by their nature should survive — intellectual property, liability, and governing law — continue to apply after your account ends.

We may update these terms. The date at the top of the page shows when they last changed, and we will give account holders notice by email of any change that materially affects their rights before it takes effect. Continuing to use GinCode after that means you accept the new terms.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Uganda, and the courts of Uganda have jurisdiction over any dispute. Before going to court, please contact us at gincode@gmail.com — most things are quicker to fix directly.

Questions about these terms go to gincode@gmail.com. How we handle your personal data is covered separately in our Privacy Policy.