Application and Eligibility

HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2020

Application

  1. Application is open from January 7, 2020 to March 16, 2020 ( New Updates).
  2. Teams must apply online (https://onemilliondollar.ust.hk). No paper entries will be accepted.
  3. Entries must be the original work of entrants.
  4. Team required to submit a 1-page executive summary through their online applications. Details please refer “Submission Rules”.

Team Forming Platform

  1. A Team Forming Platform (https://onemilliondollar.ust.hk/matching) is open from January 7, 2020 to March 16, 2020 ( New Updates)
  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 have an on-going project and/or business idea and want to form a team, register as Leader. If you want to join the competition and open to business ideas from others, register as Member.
  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 (including Overseas HKUST Members).
  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 application 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 or annual revenue or funding support from government or other institutions of more than HKD1,500,000, or ventures that have been in establishment / operation for more than 3 years, are NOT allowed to join the Competition.
  10. Top 3 awardees from previous years’ Competitions in any region are NOT allowed to join the Competition. Previous awardees will not be considered for the same award.
  11. The equity of the company should not be changed during the Competition.

Team Eligibility for Round 2 Assessment

  1. Top 50 teams will be selected to enter the Round 2 Assessment. ( New Updates)
  2. In the Pre-recorded Video for Product Introduction, each team is ONLY permitted to submit a 1-min video in MP4 format. ( New Updates)
  3. Top 24 teams will be selected to enter the Online Live Elevator Pitch according to the video review panel. Each team has a chance to give a 60-second pitch to the judges and followed by up to 3 minutes of Q&A by the Judging Panel. The pitch will be video recorded. ( New Updates)

Team Eligibility for Round 3 Assessment

  1. Top 12 teams will be selected to enter the Round 3 Assessment according to the Online Live Elevator Pitch. ( New Updates)
  2. Each team is ONLY permitted to submit 1 Business Plan of 10 PowerPoint slides in PDF format.
  3. The arrangement of the Round 3 Assessment will be depended on the healthcare situation to have further announcement. It may be conducted via online mode or mixed-mode. ( New Updates)
  4. It is strongly encouraged all members of each team to attend the Business Plan Presentation on June 3. Depending on the situation, it may be changed to online or in mixed-mode instead of face-to-face meeting with the judges. Further announcement will be made in May. ( New Updates)
  5. Only registered member is allowed to speak in Round 3, including presentation and Q&A session.

Team Eligibility for HKSTP STEP Programme

  1. Top 12 teams entered the Round 3 Assessment who meet the following criteria will be fast-tracked to the programme:
    1. Hong Kong Identity Card (HKID) holders aged 18 or above; OR
    2. Companies incorporated in Hong Kong for less than 1 year; OR
    3. Team applicants that incorporate and register a company in Hong Kong before starting the programme.
    4. Applicants who have been selected into similar programmes are not eligible for the programme. (e.g. Incubation Programme / STEP of HKSTP or Incubation Programme of Cyberport) HKSTP reserves the right to make the final decision. For details of the eligibility, please visit their website (https://www.hkstp.org/step/).

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. Participants must not make any statement, comments or issue any materials that are political, violent, discriminatory, unlawful, infringing, hateful, sexually suggestive via the Competition or that are derogatory, defamatory or adverse to the reputation of any sponsor or partner of the Competition or the Competition Event.
  3. 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.
  4. Top 12 teams entering Round 3 Assessment must attend the exhibition to be held later in the year ( New Updates) during the Grand Final
  5. 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.
  6. Photos & videos taken during the events will be used in online voting, promotion & media coverage by HKUST.