The Mayor's Technology and Innovation Awards

Presented by Study Gold Coast

If you are a Gold Coast high school student with an innovative, technological idea waiting to be discovered, the Mayor’s Technology and Innovation Awards are for you!

The Mayor’s Technology and Innovation Awards are open to year 9-12 students. To enter, students create a team of three from their school and submit their idea for judging. Ten finalist teams will then take their idea to the next level through mentoring from some of the best entrepreneurial and technical minds of the Gold Coast. The awards end with a pitch night where the 10 finalists present their ideas to an audience and panel of expert judges.

As part of your school team, you could win great prizes including:

1st place
A $5,000 cash prize for the winning school
10 hours of event space hire at Cohort Innovation Space, valued at $1,499 inc GST (conditions apply)
A tech talk by Cohort Innovation Space at the winning school
A $1,000 JB Hi-Fi voucher for each team member

2nd place
A $500 JB Hi-Fi voucher for each team member

3rd place
A $250 JB Hi-Fi voucher for each team member

People’s choice
A $250 JB Hi-Fi voucher for each team member

For full details on the awards, including terms and conditions download the School Handbook.

Click here to see the 2021 Winners.

1 Form your concept

2 Enter the awards

3 Finalist Selections

4 Mentoring workshops

5 Pitch and award night

Phase 1 – Form your concept

In your team of three, work together to come up with an innovative idea or concept that uses technology to solve a community problem.

As a first step, watch this Ideation Information Session, which gives an overview of the awards and provides you with the tools to form your killer idea for your entry. Once you’ve watched the video be sure to review the selection and criteria in the School Handbook as a guide to forming your idea.

Your idea could be a new idea for health, conservation, transport, agriculture, cyber security, construction, energy, recreation or something else. The possibilities are endless!

Phase 2 – Enter the awards

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Thank you for your submissions - entries have now closed.

Please email us if you have any queries.

Phase 3 – Finalist selections

An expert panel of judges will score each entry against the judging criteria and the ten teams with the highest scores will be announced as finalists. The ten finalists will move onto the mentoring phase of the awards, where they will further develop their idea or concept and be mentored by some of the best entrepreneurial and technical minds of the Gold Coast.

Phase 4 – Mentoring workshops

In the mentoring phase of the awards the ten finalists will take part in three mentoring sessions:

An intensive one-day finalist bootcamp at Cohort Innovation Space
An online mentoring session for each individual team
An online pitch practice and feedback session for each individual team

Finalist bootcamp: Thursday, 26 August 2021
Location: Cohort Innovation Space, Southport

Online check-in and pitch practice sessions booked between 6-17 September 2021

Phase 5 – Pitch and Award night

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The Final Pitch and Award Night is each team's opportunity to present their idea to a broader audience and convince the judging panel that their idea is the best!

Ahead of their 5-minute pitch, each team will be given a dedicated display area to showcase their idea to the judging panel and audience. Once each team has pitched their idea, judges will be given the opportunity to ask questions before tallying final scores. Finally, the winning teams will be announced: