Canada AI National Challenge 2025

Are you up for the challenge?

Let’s get started!

Français

Rules & Submission

How to Get Started

Resources

Awards

FAQ

ABOUT THE CANADA AI NATIONAL CHALLENGE

Deadlines || Overview || Rules and Eligibility ||Registration Guidelines ||Submission Requirements

Canada AI National Challenge Forms & Rubrics

Canada AI National Challenge 2025 - General Judging Rubric

Canada AI National Challenge 2025 - Special Awards Rubric

Participant Consent Form*

Guardian Consent Form*

*Mandatory submission for all participants

DEADLINES

Individual/Team Registration Closes: April 30, 2025, at midnight EST || April 30, 2025, at 9 PM PST
Project Submission Closes: May 31, 2025, at midnight EST || May 31, 2025, at 9 PM PST

OVERVIEW

The challenge will be divided into three age categories*.

Beginner (Ages 8-12): Recommendation for projects to be completed using Scratch, App Inventor or Thunkable.
Junior (Ages 13-15): Recommendation for projects to be completed as or using App Inventor, Thunkable, web apps, Python, Scikit-Learn, or Pandas.
Senior (Ages 16-18): Recommendation for projects to be completed using Python, PyTorch, Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-Learn, Matplotlib, Seaborn, or Google Colab.

*Age as of May 31, 2025. For example, if you turn 13 on May 31, 2025, you can no longer submit your project to the Beginner level, you will have to submit it to the Junior level.

RULES AND ELIGIBILITY

Students may register individually or as a part of a team (maximum of 3 team members).
Students can only be a part of one individual project and one team-based project (a maximum of two projects). Projects submitted, individually and team-based, must be different; if they are the same, the individual submission will be disqualified.
Students must be Canadian residents, international students currently studying in Canada, or Canadian homeschool students.
Student teams can be composed of students from different schools or provinces.
Student teams must work together on a single submission.
All individuals and student teams can start working on their projects from when they sign up until the project submission deadline.
All individuals and student teams must submit their project by May 31, 2025, to be eligible for the CAN AI Innovation Challenge 2025.
Mixed-age student teams must compete in the oldest participants' category.
Only one registration and project submission is needed per team with all team members listed.

REGISTRATION GUIDELINES

Review these guidelines carefully before you begin your project and before submitting. Good luck!

To submit a project, you must register individually or as part of a team (one team member will register the whole team.)
- Individually means 1 participant while a student team can have between 2-3 participants, where participants must be Canadian residents, international students currently studying in Canada, or Canadian homeschool students.
- Your project will compete in either the Beginner, Junior, or Senior divisions, based on the age of the oldest participant.
  - Beginner Division: 8-12 years old as of May 31, 2025
  - Junior Division: 13-15 years old as of May 31, 2025
  - Senior Division: 16-18 as of May 31, 2025
Students will individually register. One team member can complete the registration for the whole team including:
- Full name
- Age
- City
- School name
- Team name
- Completed participant consent form(s) upload
- Completed guardian consent form(s) upload
All required materials need to be submitted for a successful submission.
- We recommend that you review the judging rubric along with the submission requirements and materials linked below.
- Submissions must either be in English or French. We recommend English subtitles for all projects.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Requirements are for ALL divisions unless certain divisions are specified.

Project Description & Name
- LENGTH: Maximum of 150 words.
Technical Pitch Video
- DURATION: Maximum of 4 minutes.
- SUBMISSION FORMAT: Upload your video to YouTube as unlisted or publicly viewable, and submit the link. Videos shared outside of the recommended visibility may not be considered for judging.
- VIDEO CONTENT REQUIREMENTS:
  - The Problem: Clearly define the issue you are addressing and its significance.
  - Your Approach: Explain your solution, including the development process.
  - Impact: Highlight the positive changes your solution aims to create (or have already created).
  - AI Integration: Demonstrate and explain how AI plays a role in your solution.
  - Key Features: Show the most important aspects of your project.
  - Model Training: Show the training process and techniques used.
  - Dataset: Specify the dataset utilized and its relevance to the project.
  - Technical Challenges: Highlight any obstacle(s) faced and the strategies used to overcome them.
- We highly recommend that ALL videos have English subtitles even if English is spoken in the video.
AI Model (IF APPLICABLE)* (For Junior and Senior Divisions only)
- SUBMISSION FORMAT: Share your model as a Python-based Jupyter Notebook (.ipynb) or Google Colab link, along with your PyTorch model (.pt/.pth) or Scikit-learn model (.pkl), if applicable.
Project/Source Code File*
- SUBMISSION FORMAT:
  - Beginner: Scratch/MIT App Inventor/Thunkable project files
  - Junior: App Inventor/Thunkable project files, Python scripts, web app source code
  - Senior: Python scripts, web app source code
Dataset & Data Processing (IF APPLICABLE)*
- SUBMISSION FORMAT:
  - If you are using an external dataset, submit the dataset files (CSV, JSON, or a link).
  - Provide data cleaning scripts if applicable.
Documentation (For Junior and Senior Divisions only)
- LENGTH: Minimum of 800 words.
- SUBMISSION FORMAT: Submit your project report as a PDF.
- PROJECT REPORT REQUIREMENTS:
  - Problem Definition: Clearly describe the issue being addressed, its significance, and why it matters to you.
  - AI Methodology: Explain the approach used, including model selection and reasoning.
  - Implementation Details: Outline the step-by-step development process, tools used, and techniques applied.
  - Learning Journey: Reflect on key takeaways, any new skills acquired, and how your understanding of AI evolved throughout the project.
  - Challenges: Discuss any technical or non-technical obstacles encountered and how they were addressed.
  - Model Evaluation Metrics (if applicable): Provide performance metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, or other relevant evaluations to assess the effectiveness of the AI model.
GitHub Repository (Optional for Junior Division, Recommended for Senior Division)
- Encouraged for version control and collaboration.
- SUBMISSION FORMAT: Submit a link.

*Combine as a zip file.

To see the full details of each submission criterion, reference the judging rubrics linked above.