Compliance requirements
Exclusion grounds include final convictions within the previous five years, or an exclusion period that remains in force, for participation in a criminal organisation, corruption, fraud, terrorist offences, money laundering or terrorist financing, and child labour or human trafficking. These grounds may apply to the participant and to members of its administrative, management or supervisory bodies, or persons authorised to represent, make decisions for or control it. Where permitted, the participant may provide evidence of measures taken to restore its reliability.
A participant may also be excluded for unpaid taxes or social security contributions in its country of establishment or the buyer’s country. The notice specifies a threshold of EUR 0; however, under the stated tax rules, a tax-debt certificate is not issued for debt below EUR 100 (excluding interest not established by an administrative act) or where payment has been rescheduled. A foreign participant’s tax-debt certificate is issued under the rules of its country of establishment.
National grounds include enabling a foreign national to work unlawfully or breaching the conditions for their employment in Estonia, including paying less than the statutory wage rate; entering into the contract would violate an applicable international or Estonian government sanction; and violating any restriction imposed in the tender documents on participation based on the participant’s country of establishment or residence.
Qualification criteria and exclusion grounds
Participants must submit a partially developed functional prototype that convincingly demonstrates the core use case, solution logic and technical feasibility, including at least one genuinely working analytical component. The minimum requirements are set out in the competition task, including chapters 3 and 13; non-compliant concepts will not proceed to evaluation.
A project plan must describe the main stages and activities, provide a cost breakdown based on an estimated contract value of EUR 150,000 excluding VAT, and show interim deliverables and the schedule through completion of the working prototype. It must identify key team members’ responsibilities, significant dependencies and main risks with mitigation principles, and be sufficiently detailed to demonstrate a realistic, feasible approach that meets the buyer’s deadline. The plan must state the initial cost of implementing the concept.
Participants must provide a list of the team members who will perform the contract, their tasks and CVs demonstrating their competence. The team must comprise at least four different people and collectively cover these eight roles: project manager, software developer, artificial intelligence or machine-learning specialist, software architect, data analyst, business analyst, service designer and information security specialist. One person may cover multiple roles if this does not compromise quality or schedule and all required competencies are covered.
The concept must be anonymous: its documents and digital components must not reveal the participant’s identity. Each separate component must bear a meaningful word-based pseudonym, not an emblem, logo or alphanumeric code; identifying information must also be removed from digital file metadata. If one participant submits multiple concepts, each must use a different pseudonym. The participant must confirm readiness to take part in the subsequent negotiated procedure without prior publication and conclude a contract to implement the winning concept. The concept’s estimated implementation cost must be included in the project plan. Where there is a joint tender, the participants must appoint an authorised representative and provide a power of attorney. During contract performance, subcontractors and suppliers may be engaged only if established in Estonia, another EU Member State, an EEA contracting state or a state party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement.
The jury evaluates the concept under the criteria “User experience and service journey” and “Technical vision, architecture and integration readiness”; it evaluates the project plan under “User experience and service journey” and “Project plan and feasibility”. No criterion weights or scoring scale are specified in the available document text.