How Day-1 pitch and stage slots are decided

Twelve pitch slots. Three minutes each. Day 1.

That is the whole inventory. Against a roster of more than a hundred listed companies it is a genuinely competitive process, and saying so plainly is better than implying otherwise — an applicant who understands the odds and applies anyway is a better applicant.

Merit decides who presents. A package decides which slots you may apply for.

Buying a stand, a Day-1 package or a delegate ticket does not add a single point to a score, and no amount of spend substitutes for evidence. Amplifai takes no equity, no success fee, no placement fee and no referral commission in any circumstance, and recommends no supplier.

These are gates, not scores. An application failing any one of them is declined with the reason stated, and nothing else about it is assessed.

⚠️ One role per organisation. An organisation participating as a Partner cannot also apply as an innovator.

Two reviewers score independently. A slot needs 60 points and no dimension below 40% of its maximum — a strong product with no APAC footing is still the wrong pitch for this room.

In order:

1. Higher evidence score (2.2). Evidence beats everything.
2. Broader challenge coverage — a challenge with no other representation on the stage is preferred, so the programme covers the framework rather than clustering.
3. Asia-Pacific headquarters. Used here and only here.
4. Earlier complete application.

⚠️ A package is never a tie-breaker. If two applications are level on all four, both are declined a pitch slot and offered a Startup Zone presence instead, and the slot goes to the next application.

Conflicts of interest. A reviewer with any commercial, advisory, investment or employment relationship with an applicant declares it and recuses from that application. A sponsor may not review. Recusals are logged.

Right of reply. An applicant may correct a factual error in the assessment within three working days. A correction can change a score. A disagreement about judgement cannot.

The recommended dates leave eight days between decisions and the freeze, which is the minimum that allows a declined applicant to still take a Startup Zone place and a successful one to prepare properly.

Day 1's pitch finals run 14:55–15:40 — 45 minutes. The arithmetic:

There is no contingency in that. One overrun cascades into every pitch after it, and the awards moment at 15:40–15:50 has nowhere to absorb it.

• ·One deck, loaded in advance. No laptop swaps, no dongles, no "can you pull up my website". Slides submitted 48 hours ahead or the slot is forfeited.
• ·A visible countdown clock facing the presenter, and a hard stop. The microphone cuts at 3:00 — then it is the rule doing the enforcing, not the MC.
• ·Presenters queued stage-left, next two always standing by.
• ·The MC introduces by name and company only — five seconds. No reading of credentials; the programme carries those.
• ·No Q&A, no judge commentary, no scoring on stage. If any of those are wanted, the number of pitches has to come down.

The honest alternative: ten pitches at the same three minutes gives roughly a minute of slack per changeover and a session that can survive one thing going wrong. Twelve is achievable and it is the right ambition — but it needs the five rules above to be non-negotiable.

• ·It does not score how much a company has raised. Funding is not evidence.
• ·It does not score novelty. A boring product that demonstrably works outranks a novel one that does not.
• ·It does not favour APACMed members, and it does not favour non-members.
• ·It does not guarantee anything to anyone, at any spend level.
• ·It does not select solvers for introductions. That is a separate process with separate consent, and a pitch decision has no bearing on it.