Live presentations will take place in two rounds. Prior to the first round of presentations, semi-finalist teams will meet with leading business mentors to fine-tune and review their presentations. The first round of live presentations will then commence, with semi-finalist teams presenting in front of a panel of highly experienced and qualified business experts. Each team will be assessed based on the Judging Criteria. After this round of presentations, all semi-finalist judges will convene to determine the top 5 teams that will move to the finalist round. Also at this time, winners of the WEtech Local Technology Award and the Postmedia People’s Choice Award will be determined. The finalist teams will have the opportunity to meet with their mentors again before the final presentations. The final presentations will take place in front of a new panel of judges where the winner of the RBC EPIC BMCC will be determined.

All live presentations will be a maximum of 10 minutes in length, with 5 minutes of questions from the judging panel. Please see the Resources page for examples of exceptional live presentations, information about the lean startup method and tools for utilizing the business model canvas.

Each of the following criteria will be scored on a scale from 1 – 5, with 1 being poor explained and 5 being exceptional. Judging will not be biased based on the type of business and their inherent pivoting time frame. For example, web-based businesses are able to pivot inherently more quickly than physical product-based businesses.

1. Did the team clearly state their initial hypotheses and how they were developed?
2. Is the customer problem a ‘significant’ problem and was ‘significant’ defined?
3. Did the team identify which initial hypotheses are most crucial for their business success and should be tested first?
4. Did the team create fast, low cost, and effective methods for testing their hypotheses?
5. Did the team use the testing methods they developed in a reliable and effective manner?
6. Did the team develop conclusions from the results of their testing and did they clearly state whether their hypotheses were validated or invalidated?
7. Did the team pivot based on supporting evidence from their testing?
8. Did the team develop a minimum viable product, as opposed to immediately creating a full product, which addressed their hypotheses for further testing?
9. Did the team use a business model canvas to record their progress?
10. Did the team provide evidence that their business model/solution to a customer problem was validated?
11. Did the team incorporate constructive feedback from mentors?