Business Incubator Series 2025

Presented by ACU Co-Lab

The Business Incubator Series is an eight-week in-depth learning program designed to help businesses and students in the ACU community develop practical skills in business - from establishment to growth.

Our facilitators and guest speakers will provide you with an array of tools and resources to help you better understand markets and identify opportunities. They will share their stories of what makes a successful business in the modern age.

The cost is fully subsidised for ACU university students, staff and alumni. For the broader community, paid tickets are available with early bird pricing at $45 per workshop, Standard tickets at $65 per workshop, and last-minute tickets at $85 per workshop. Topics are delivered via livestream to a national audience.

Delivered by Disruptors Co.

Workshops and dates

Attend the full program to be in the best position to develop a winning pitch for the ACU Business Award or choose specific workshops directly relevant to your project.

Business Incubator Award 2025

Attend three or more workshops and you will be eligible to enter the ACU Business Award.

The award recognises an individual or team who have developed a novel business idea and are at any stage of development, from idea to market. Your idea may be for a business that sells a physical product or one that offers a service.

The winning video pitch entry receives:

• $10,000 prize
• promotion of the winning business/project through ACU Co-Lab's community ecosystem.

Key dates

Closing date: 11.59pm AEDT on Sunday 2 November 2025

How to enter

The ACU Business Award is open to any eligible entrant who attends at least three Business Incubator workshops. To participate, you must lodge your application online.

Submitting your application

To enter the competition, during the competition period eligible entrants must:

1. submit an entry via the online application form; and
2. submit a video pitch at the same time as lodging an entry, where the video length must be no more than three minutes.

Judging criteria

Eligible entries will be judged by a panel appointed at the sole discretion of ACU and the selection of the winning entry will be based on the highest scoring eligible entry based on the following judging criteria:

Presentation skills - 20 points

1. Storytelling and passion of delivery
2. Professional manner

Pitch content - 70 points

1. Clarity by which you have outlined the problem and your solution
2. The innovative nature of your solution
3. The addressable market size
4. Your strategy for taking the idea to market
5. Identification of competition
6. How robust your proposed business and revenue models are
7. Demonstrable skills required to build and execute a solution, and noticeable passion for delivering the outcome

Audio/video quality - 10 points

1. Quality of the audio and video presentation

View our terms and conditions