Application and Eligibility

Application

  1. Application is open from February 12, 2018 to March 22, 2018.
  2. Teams must apply online (http://onemilliondollar.ust.hk/). No paper entries will be accepted.
  3. Entries must be the original work of entrants.
  4. Team required to submit a 2-page executive summary through their online applications. Details please refer “Submission Rules”.

Team Forming Platform

  1. A Team Forming Platform (http://onemilliondollar.ust.hk/matching) is open from February 12, 2018 to March 22, 2018
  2. Each participant could register either as a team leader or as a team member. One email address could only register for one role (Leader / Member). If you want to change your role, you have to register a new account with another email address.
  3. The team leaders could edit team information and add new team members. They could also find available team members with desired skills registered on the platform.
  4. The team members could provide their skills, or find a team that they are interested in.

Team Eligibility for Application

  1. The Competition is open to all full-time and part-time students at all levels and post-docs, alumni, researchers, faculty and staff of HKUST.
  2. The team must have at least one HKUST faculty or student or alumni or staff. This applies to mainland or international teams who wish to compete in this Competition.
  3. The size of each team must be between 2 to 5 members. All team members must be registered members of the team. Changes of team members are not allowed after Round 2 submission.
  4. Each team must have at least 1 member with at least 20% ownership in the proposed company.
  5. Each team is ONLY permitted to submit 1 Executive Summary for Round 1 Assessment.
  6. Each participant can only join up to 1 team. Each team can only join up to 1 regional competition. Teams are encouraged to join the region that is at its approximated location and those who join more than 1 regional competition will be disqualified.
  7. A team leader should be identified for each team, who will be point-of-contact with the Competition organizer.
  8. The team is not required to be a business registered company. The team can be an early stage company that had established no more than 3 years. The company can be at inventor stage or seed stage where there is an idea, a concept, or even a product, with little or no income has been generated yet. Team name has to be the same as company name and it is not allowed to be changed during the competition.
  9. Companies that have received prior investment of more than HKD12,000,000, or ventures that have been in establishment / operation for more than 3 years, are NOT allowed to join the Competition.
  10. The equity of the company should not be changed during the Competition.

Team Eligibility for Round 2 Assessment

  1. Each team is ONLY permitted to submit 1 Business Plan of 8-10 ppt slides in PDF format.
  2. All members of each team must attend the Exhibition on April 17.

Team Eligibility for Round 3 Assessment

  1. Each team is ONLY permitted to submit 1 Business Plan of 15-20 ppt slides in PDF format.
  2. All members of each team must attend the Business Plan Presentation on June 7.

Important Note:

  1. By submitting a business plan, the team represents and warrants the team have all right, title and/or interest in the business plan submitted and the information it contains is accurate and complete, and that by submitting the document the team is not and will not be violating any contract or third party rights including any patent, copyright, trade secret, proprietary or confidentiality information, trademark, publicity or privacy right. In addition, the team must have the relevant IP usage right of the technology or innovation proposed to further develop the business. The competition committee reserves the rights to request at any time the appropriate proof from the team on the IP rights.

  2. All teams are expected to abide by the rules enumerated above. HKUST reserves the right to disqualify any application that fails to conform to the rules of the Competition.

  3. Top 12 teams entering Round 3 Assessment must attend the exhibition to be held in August during the Grand Final.

  4. By submitting a business plan, the teams agree to share their information to Entrepreneurship Center for publicity and communication with the investment community. For materials that are highly confidential and proprietary, the team should make special note to EC for special handling of such information.

  5. Photos & videos taken during the events will be used in online voting, promotion & media coverage by HKUST.