Challenge Terms and Conditions

Categories and Eligibility

There are 6 categories for the Futurepreneurs Virtual Pitch Challenge, which are split into school, and non-school. These categories are also split into junior and senior groups, and individual and team-based. The junior is for students in years 7-8, and the senior is for students in years 9-12. Students can enter their pitches into a range of hot topics, including Climate-Tech, Agri-Tech, Education-Tech, Health-Tech, and Finance-Tech.

Challenge Major Prize

This competition is open to anyone aged between 12-18 years old. To be eligible to enter the competition, students must have enrolled through Open Learning and purchased the entry fee ticket to submit their pitch or business idea.

There are cash prizes and grants for each category winner, including a special prize for the people’s choice award.

Each submission must be submitted in the correct class on Open Learning depending on your age, school status, or team size.

How to Enter

Register yourself or your team on our competition portal hosted on OpenLearning and share a couple of important details to help us tailor our support information, competition updates and communications.

You will be asked to pay a small fee for participating in the Challenge giving you access to great tutorials and other resources to help rock your pitch entry.

  • All entry fees in Australian Dollars (AUD)
  • Entry fee waived if students are enrolled on an Entropolis program
  • Discount for multiple team entries
  • Consideration given to schools meeting low-income criteria

You can enter a start-up idea, product solution or business plan you’re already working on in or out of school, or use this as an opportunity to kick-start your entrepreneur journey.

Simply navigate to your correct category and challenge topic and upload your pitch deck and video, ensuring to save it with you’re your name.

Pitch Submission

This competition requires submission of a pitch deck and video on a business idea, product or service. To enter the competition students must:

  • Submit a pitch deck in Powerpoint or PDF format using the template provided, for junior categories presentations maximum 15 slides, senior categories maximum 20 slides.
  • Submit a 3–5-minute explainer video in .mp4 format.
  • Your video can be a live-to-camera style filmed on your smartphone or, an edited audio-visual presentation.
  • When submitting a pitch video you give Entropolis the right to display the entrees to a range of content platforms, such as social media and website.
  • In order to be successful your pitch must solve a problem in relation to one of the 5 pitch categories Climate-Tech, Agri-Tech, Education-Tech, Health-Tech, or Finance-Tech.
  • Your pitch deck and video must make the solution and problem clear.

Prepare for Pitch Challenge Entry

You can enter a start-up idea, product solution, or business plan you’re already working on in or out of school, or use this as an opportunity to kick-start your entrepreneur journey.

  • Identify a real-world problem in the world around you, your life, your school, your community or the world.
  • Watch our webinars or take join Futurepreneurs Academy for inspiration and to help you build entrepreneurial knowledge, mindset and skills.
  • Use templates to help structure your pitch presentation and video.
  • Watch our Pitch Masters videos to help you finesse your entry.

Tips for your Pitch Entrees

Preparing and delivering a pitch is an essential tool for any business and even more so for a start-up.

Pitching your business idea can help open the door to opportunities, for example gaining interest from an investor or partner, so it is important to get the person you are talking to interested quickly so they want to keep listening and learning more. The goal of a great pitch is to gain enough interest so that you can deliver your full presentation.

Great pitches are authentic, not contrived, concise, memorable, intriguing, and not overselling.

When creating your pitch there are specific categories that you have to meet in order to make it effective:

  1. Your Introduction

Start your pitch deck with a bang! Introduce yourself or your team. Tell us a quick one-sentence vision or overview of your business and the value that you provide to your customers.

  1. The problem you are solving

State clearly the problem you want to solve, and how it fits within your chosen competition category. Be sure to highlight why this problem is important and how it impacts your audience.

  1. Describe your business idea

Describe how customers use your product or service and how it addresses the problems that you outlined. List the key features and focus on highlighting the benefits of the product for your target customer.

  1. Who it effects

This is where you describe the market that you plan to target and what their specific ‘pain point’ is.  You should also include a target customer profile here or on a separate slide and tell the story of how this problem is specifically affecting them.

  1. The Competition

Identify your competitors, what they offer, and include facts and insights you might have learned about your competitors.

  1. Milestones

Here is your chance to tell us what you have planned from here and what you would do with the prize money for your business. Focus on your exciting vision for the next stage of your business.

  1. What’s Next

Tell us what you have planned from here and what you would do to your business with the prize money, focus on your exciting vision for the next stages.

  1. Epic Close

Summarise your business idea and tell us why your business will be successful in the future.

What will the judges be looking for?

The judges will pick a winner based on their problem analysis, idea, commercialisation plan (Seniors only), and pitch presentation deck/ explainer video. Remember to consider the following when making your pitch.

  • Resilience – Demonstrating persistence, problem-solving, pivoting, and experimentation to address challenges and learn from success and failure.
  • Confidence – Showing motivation, confidence, and initiative.
  • Business Acumen– Demonstrating understanding of core business concepts
  • Market research- Business owners are able to reflect on and explain findings from the market testing and research
  • Customer experience- The business has gathered feedback from customers about the business and its product.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to enter?

Head over to the competition landing page on Open Learning and enroll by purchasing the entry ticket. Submit a video and pitch deck in your category before the deadline.

When does the competition start?

The competition commences at 0900 AEST on 5th August 2024.

When does the competition close?

The competition closes at 11:59 PM AEST on 30th November 2024. Finalists will be announced on 15th December 2024, and winners will be announced on February 15th, 2025.

What does it cost to enter?

To enter the competition students will need to pay $50.00 per individual through the Open Learning portal. 

How many times can a team enter?

Entrants in the competition may only enter once.

Can Entropolis use my video for another purpose?

Yes, all entries become the property of Entropolis. 

Is my privacy and security safe by putting my video on Open Learning?

The videos will be added to a private gallery on Open Learning, and the finalists videos will be made public to the other entrees for the people’s choice awards.  Your security is our utmost priority, this will be closely monitored by the Entropolis team. No negative comments will be tolerated and will be removed.