Yes, you can – and we urge you to! In each of the 12 industry categories there are three streams that will suit you. You can enter:

• Research (for research and early stage business projects that can be pre-revenue and must be pre-break even)
• Commercial (for commercial entries, which are in market and generating revenue – there is not upper or lower limit for turnover)
• Social (for the not-for-profit, public organisation, social innovation and social enterprise entries)

Your entry will be evaluated alongside other innovation projects of the same industry.

Nope! Nominations are a nice way to shoulder tap someone who you think it doing great work and may not think to enter themselves. However, if you or your team are keen to enter, there's no need to nominate yourself, or wait to be nominated! Just go ahead and enter.

Yes! We have a couple of categories specifically for amazing people - Most Inspiring Individual and Young NZ Innovator. You can enter their work, and there is a place on the form to highlight the individual you have in mind!

Absolutely! It's never too late... well, until entries close anyway. You can continue to make nominations through the NOMINATIONS FORM and we'll be in touch to let them know and encourage them to enter.

Nominations once entries closed will be stored away for NZ Innovation Awards 2018.

• Entry is open to individuals, organisations and businesses.
• Individuals must be either NZ citizens or permanent residents aged 18 and over at the time of entry (or 16, with guardian permission).
• Organisations must be registered in and have operations in New Zealand.

See the full terms and conditions here.

Yes, absolutely! Some of our favourite growth stories come from organisations that enter when early stage and come back to enter again with a whole lot of exciting progress to tell us about. We've seen some entrants be a finalist one year and win their category the next! We provide you with feedback on your entry, so feel free to put this into practice and hone your entry.

You must look within one's self, young grasshopper.

Innovation is a state of mind, a psychographic, a process, and an outcome with an impact. If you think you are solving a problem, seizing an opportunity, disrupting or creating a market, or doing things very, very differently, then chances are you are just the kind of crazy we are looking for.

Get in contact if you'd like to talk it through!

• Make sure your entry is complete, clear and in before the deadline of 5pm Friday 4th August (extended from 28th July).
• Tell us a story! Share your customer story and your core purpose. Video can be really helpful for this.
• Categories matter. Get smart about which industry categories you choose to enter. We can help you narrow this down.
• What's your market? Provide a clear picture of your markets, and their size and scale. The more market information you can provide, the better.
• Show us the money! Provide a short summary of financial data, or forecasting with supporting data.
• Share your vision. Social innovation entries are about impact and vision - tell us how your innovation is having a positive impact.

Please note: the online form is made up of plain-text boxes. You are not able to include images, links or bullet points in your written answers. Save these goodies for the PDF, website link or video link you can attach.

Given the number of entries we receive, we aren't able to coordinate demonstrations to our evaluators. So just pack all that goodness into your entry - you could use the video option in your entry and film a short demo. If you're not sure how to explain how your innovation works without a show-and-tell, give us a call and we can help you come up with a solution - 0800 2 46668.

Entries tend to open at the beginning of June each year. We only make minor tweaks to the categories, entry form and criteria each year, so you can sneak a peek at all of this information over on our How to Enter page in the meantime... just don't get your heart set on that exact format/wording in case we make some changes before we launch in 2018!

We're guessing you know your innovation & organisation well. Like REALLY well. All we're looking for is you to share that knowledge and experience in the entry form. This could be from information you already have on hand or writing up something specific. Aside from the who are you / how can we contact you, the main bulk of the entry form (and the only bit that is evaluated!) is 6 - 8 questions long, and no more than 250 words per question.

For some entrants, they can do this in around an hour. Others like to spend more time, and get input from other members of their team.

The best shortcut we can offer? Call us. We can help you nail the categories you should enter and take you through the entry form over the phone. 

No way! You look great. The shine really sets off your glowing skin!

Valid question! You pour your heart and soul, and sometimes some commercially sensitive information, into your entry. We guard it with our lives.

The Awards convenor has access to all entries, and they only use this information to check your entry came through OK, let you know if any additional information is needed, and allocate your entry for evaluation.

We allocate your entry to three separate evaluators, who will be invited to review and score via a secure online system. All evaluators are carefully selected, sign a non-disclosure agreement, and participate in the Awards out of the goodness of their innovation-loving hearts. 

If you score well, your entry will be up for discussion amongst our moderation team (again, all carefully chosen and bound by an NDA). If there is anything in your entry that is extremely sensitive and you would like dibs on who knows what and when, give us a call.

Conflicts of interest are taken into account. If there is a conflict between your entry and an evaluator, they will not be allocated to review or score your submission.

Firstly, check out the category descriptions. These are seriously your best friend in terms of writing an entry the evaluators will love.

Ultimately, we're looking for uniqueness, impact, scalability, and innovation at every level. Tell us a story about the problem you're solving, why your solution is unique, who it is impacting AND in what metrics, how well you know your market and its size, and what disruption is next for you.

If in doubt, go back to the question at hand and make sure you are answering it as best you can. Or call us, you can do that too.

We allocate each entry to three separate evaluators, all holding expertise in your industry category with an innovation bent, and they are bound by non-disclosure agreements. Each evaluator independently scores your entry through our online system. We aggregate all scores, and the best performing entries are up for discussion (or argument, depending on how heated things get) at our moderation session. This is for us to check that each evaluator understood your entry, and that they have scored your fairly, and can defend that score.

The moderation session produces the list of finalists. We perform due diligence on those finalists before we announce them online approximately 6 weeks ahead of the Awards Event.

We publish a list of finalists online approximately 6 weeks ahead of the Awards Event. We don't contact finalists to tell them personally (either before or after the list is published) so make sure you take a look!

Yes, of course! We provide feedback on entries in November, and we're happy to chat this through.