Indo Pacific Innovation Pitchfest and Awards 2025 (Australia)

With increasing demand for innovation and rapid capability delivery to the Australian Defence Force, fostering new ideas, technologies, and forward-thinking solutions has never been more critical.

In 2025, the innovation program will take on an exciting new format, combining the prestigious Innovation Awards with the popular Pitchfest event to recognise and showcase innovations at various stages of development.

This initiative will provide a national platform for Australian companies, organisations, and emerging innovators to present their groundbreaking ideas to an international audience at Indo Pacific 2025.

Categories

• Australian organisations and individuals are invited to submit their innovations, regardless of their development stage, in one of four categories:
  • Indo Pacific 2025 Innovation Award
  • Indo Pacific 2025 Emerging Technology Award
  • Indo Pacific 2025 Young Innovator Award
  • Indo Pacific 2025 Blue-Sky Thinking Innovation Award

Prize Information

• Winners of the first three categories will receive a $40,000 cash prize, and the winner of the Blue-Sky Thinking Innovation Award will receive $10,000 to contribute to further personal and innovation development. There will be an additional winning category on the day for Best Presenter that will receive a trophy prize only.

Eligibility Criteria

• The Indo Pacific 2025 Innovation Award and Emerging Technology Award are open to Australian companies and the Australian subsidiaries of overseas parent companies, and to consortia, Defence agencies and organisations that are teamed with Australian companies.
• To be eligible for the Indo Pacific 2025 Innovation Award or Emerging Technology Award the entrant must also have its headquarters, and the majority of its operations based in Australia; and have an Australian Company Number (ACN) and/or Australian Business Number.
• The Indo Pacific 2025 Innovation Award and Emerging Technology Award will be presented to the innovators that, in the opinion of the judging panels, have developed the most innovative new product, service, production or manufacturing process or approach to business in a specific category.
• The Indo Pacific 2025 Innovation Award and Emerging Technology Award are also open to research organisations and universities, consortia, Defence agencies and organisations that are teamed with Australian companies and who have a product, service, process or approach to business which may be of a high Technology Readiness Level (TRL) (typically 7, 8 or 9 in the case of the Innovation Award) or a lower TRL (typically, less than TRL 5 or 6) in the case of the Emerging Technology Award, but which address an identified Defence or Defence Industry need and, if an emerging technology, could be developed to the point where it could be commercialised and adopted by an end user.
• The Indo Pacific 2025 Young Innovator Award is open to either Australian citizens or individuals who have been granted permanent residence and who are working (or doing the majority of their work) in Australia, even if their employer is the local subsidiary of a foreign company. He or she may be employed by a company, academic body or government organisation but must not be employed in a senior supervisory position. This award is aimed at engineers, researchers, and scientists near the beginning of their career, including emerging leaders who may have less than 7 years post-qualification experience due to a break in study, and is to be used to further develop their capabilities. The person may be self-nominated or nominated by his or her employer. The employer doesn’t necessarily need to be an entrant, award finalist or winner. The nominee must be under 30 years of age as of the date that nominations fall due though Judges might, at their discretion, accept entries from those who are slightly older but have less than 7 years postqualification experience due to a break in their education or career. AMDA welcomes entries for the Young Innovator Award from across the full spectrum of early career engineers, researchers, and scientists.
• The Indo Pacific 2025 Blue-Sky Thinking Innovation Award is open to individuals, small businesses, research organisations and universities, consortia, Defence agencies and organisations that are teamed with Australian companies and who have a product, service, process or approach to business which may be of a low Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 0-3, but which address an identified Defence or Defence Industry need and could be developed to the point where it could be commercialised and adopted by an end user. This award is open to Australian entities: Australian companies or Australian research organisations and universities and the Australian subsidiaries of overseas parent companies. In the case of individuals, they must be Australian citizens or individuals who have been granted permanent residence and who are working (or doing the majority of their work) in Australia

For more information, visit AMDA Foundation Limited.