Frequently asked questions

Seven Minute Tech (7MT, 七分钟科技) is a global pitch competition for builders, founders, and researchers. You take one technical idea and turn it into a seven-minute spoken story that a smart stranger can follow. The live format is three constraints: one static slide, no props, seven minutes flat. You apply with a 90-second video. Selected applicants pitch in regional heats across eight host cities. Top speakers from each heat advance to national or regional semifinals. Twelve finalists meet in November for a hybrid grand finale broadcast from Shanghai.

The competition is operated as a non-profit. There is no submission fee. Finalist talks are released under a permissive licence so they can be studied. Certificates issued to heat finalists, semifinalists, and winners can be checked on the public verify page.

On stage you get one static slide and your voice. The slide may not contain transitions, animations, embedded video, GIFs, or sound. You may not bring props, costumes, instruments, laboratory equipment, a second screen, a clicker that triggers media, or a live demo. You may not substitute a song, rap, or performed poem for the talk. The clock starts on your first word or first movement. A visible timer is on stage. A talk that exceeds 7:00 is disqualified, even if the last sentence is the best sentence you have. The judging panel’s decision is final. The same constraints apply at heats, semifinals, and the grand finale. They exist so a first-year founder with a laptop and a well-funded lab with a graphics team share the same toolkit.

The application video is a compressed version of the live talk, not a trailer and not a product demo. Record yourself speaking to camera for no more than 90 seconds. One take is preferred; two cuts are allowed; jump-cut montages, background music, lower-thirds, and B-roll of a lab are not. Hold the same static slide (or a print of it) in frame or superimpose it as a still. Landscape 16:9, 1080p if you can, 720p if you cannot. File types: MP4 or MOV, H.264, audio clearly intelligible, file size under 200 MB. Do not watermark the video with a company logo that is not yours. Do not add captions that replace the spoken argument — accessibility captions that match the speech are welcome. Upload a private or unlisted link (YouTube, Bilibili, Vimeo, or a cloud folder with view access) and put the URL in your application email. We do not accept WeChat file transfers as the canonical copy. Full packing list is on Apply.

One slide. PowerPoint (.pptx), Keynote (.key), or PDF. 16:9 widescreen, 1920×1080 pixels recommended. No animations, morphs, builds, GIFs, embedded video, audio, or links that leave the slide. Fonts must be embedded or converted to outlines in the PDF. Maximum file size 15 MB. The slide is an anchor, not a script: one strong image, a short title or no title, and almost no body text. If we cannot open the file on a standard Windows and macOS machine without installing extra fonts, we will ask you to resubmit as PDF. The live operator will lock the slide on screen for the full seven minutes; you do not get to “click through.” The same slide you submit with the video is the slide you use on stage unless the heat producer approves a correction for a factual error before doors open.

7MT is open worldwide. There is no upper age limit. The practical floor is 18 on the date of the heat you enter, because heats are public events and travel is involved. Younger undergraduates may apply with a faculty or legal-guardian endorsement and will be considered case by case. Eligible roles: graduate or doctoral researchers at an accredited institution; founders or technical co-founders of a company less than seven years old; independent engineers, scientists, or builders with a real project (open source, hardware, applied research); undergraduates presenting original research or a working prototype with an endorsement. You must be a primary contributor to the work. Previous national-final winners may not re-enter as speakers (they may judge). Teams of two may apply if both appear in the video and both would speak on stage, splitting the seven minutes; the panel still scores one talk, not two CVs. A literature review with no original work is not eligible. Full list: Compete.

No. You pick a heat; you do not need to reside there. Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Berlin, and Boston are the 2026 hosts. If two heats are logistically possible for you, pick one — dual applications are rejected. Travel to the heat is on you unless you request a need-based stipend after you are shortlisted. Stipends are modest (economy travel and one night of lodging, capped) and are not a prize. Semifinalists and grand-finalists receive a travel package to the next stage; we do not pay for companions. Visas are your responsibility; we issue invitation letters for confirmed speakers. If you cannot attend in person after being selected, you forfeit the slot — we do not run remote heats. Audience members and press do not need to apply; doors and livestream details go out two weeks before each city.

You do. Applying does not assign your patents, code, data, or company equity to 7MT. You grant us a limited licence to show the talk, the slide, your name, affiliation, and a short description for running the competition, the livestream, the archive, and press. Finalist talks are released under a permissive licence so students and journalists can study them; if a talk contains unpublished results you must either omit the sensitive detail or request an archive delay of up to 90 days after the finale. We will not sign an NDA to watch a seven-minute public pitch. Do not include trade secrets you are not willing to say out loud in a room with phones. If your institution requires a disclosure form before public talks, file it before you apply — we cannot pause a heat for a tech-transfer office.

You may use AI tools to rehearse, to check grammar, to generate a first outline, or to produce a draft illustration that you then redraw or license. You may not present generated text as if you understand it, and you may not put a fully generated image on the slide without saying so in the application form. The work you describe must be yours. If a model wrote the only insight in the talk, the talk is not eligible. Judges score comprehension and content; a fluent script that you cannot defend in the unscripted minute after the bell will collapse. We do not ban tools. We ban substituting a tool for authorship. Disclose material AI assistance in the application email in one sentence. Failure to disclose is a disqualification if it comes to light before prizes are confirmed.

Heat finalists, semifinalists, grand-finalists, and named prize winners receive a 7MT certificate with a unique ID and a QR code. Anyone can paste the verification URL or the ID into cert/verify.html. A valid certificate shows the name, year, stage, and role that were issued. A missing checksum, a reused screenshot, or an ID we did not issue will fail. We do not sell certificates. We do not issue participation certificates for people who only submitted a video and were not selected. If your name is spelled wrong, write to hello@7mt.org with the ID; we reissue and retire the old record. Employers and universities should use the verify page rather than trusting a PDF forwarded by email.

Applications open in March 2026 and close 30 June 2026, 23:59 in the timezone of the heat you select (if you are unsure, use UTC+8). Regional heats: Shanghai 15 June, Beijing 22 June, Shenzhen 10 July, Hong Kong 18 July, Singapore 2 August, London 12 August, Berlin 26 August, Boston 9 September. Asia-Pacific semifinal: 28 September, Singapore. Europe-Americas semifinal: 12 October, Berlin. Grand finale: 14 November 2026, hybrid Shanghai and online. Shanghai and Beijing heats sit before the application close because those cities shortlist on a rolling basis from videos received by early June; you can still apply after those two heats for the remaining six cities until 30 June. See the city cards on Events.

Heats in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong accept Mandarin or English. Singapore accepts English. London, Berlin, and Boston accept English; Berlin also accepts German. The Asia-Pacific and Europe-Americas semifinals and the grand finale are in English, with simultaneous interpretation offered into Mandarin at the finale. The slide may mix English and Chinese. If you switch languages mid-talk, you still have seven minutes total — interpretation does not pause the clock. Captions on the livestream are added after the fact for the archive, not live, except at the finale.

One application, one city. If we receive two videos from the same person for two heats, we keep the earlier one and discard the rest. A two-person team is allowed as described under eligibility; three or more people on stage is not. You may not apply with someone else’s work even if they gave permission. You may not recycle a 3MT, Falling Walls Lab, or MT180 script without rewriting it for seven minutes and for a builder audience — and those programmes are not partners of 7MT. If you already presented the same idea in another timed-pitch contest, say so in the email. It is not an automatic bar; hiding it is.

Entry is free and always has been. We do not charge “processing,” “fast track,” or “certificate” fees. The grand prize is a cash award, a set of investor and lab introductions that the winner can decline, a 7MT certificate, and a speaking tour of host campuses and partner stages in the following year. Runner-up and People’s Choice receive a smaller cash award, a certificate, and invitations to selected tour stops. Heat winners receive a certificate and travel to the semifinal. Exact cash figures for 2026 are confirmed with the prize-pool partners in September and announced before the finale; they are not tied to equity. We do not take a share of your company. Details live on Winners.

You receive an acknowledgement within two business days. A screening panel watches the 90-second videos against the same four criteria used on stage (comprehension, content, engagement, communication). Shortlists go out within two weeks of each city’s deadline. At the heat, every selected speaker gives the full seven-minute talk. Top three from each heat advance. Semifinals take those speakers and cut to the twelve who reach the November finale. There is no wild-card round except a single producer’s discretion seat used only if a finalist withdraws. Audience votes award People’s Choice and do not break a judges’ tie — judges break their own ties in closed session. Read the day-of schedule on Events and the numeric rubric on Judging.

Exceeding 7:00. A second slide or a build on the first slide. Any prop, costume, or live demo. Extra audio or video. Presenting work you did not primarily author. A video application with music, heavy editing, or a stand-in speaker. Undisclosed material AI authorship. Harassment of other speakers, judges, or staff. Selling or forging a certificate. Reading a sponsor’s product name as a paid placement. The full list is on Compete. Reading from notes is allowed but scored down by the audience panel; it is not a DQ. Going 7:01 is a DQ. That rule is the one talented speakers most often test, and it is the one we do not bend.

Three Minute Thesis (3MT), which originated at the University of Queensland, is a three-minute, one-slide, no-props contest for research degree candidates presenting a thesis. Falling Walls Lab is a three-minute pitch programme with local labs and a Berlin global finale around the Science Summit; recent cycles have drawn thousands of applicants across dozens of countries. MT180 (Ma thèse en 180 secondes) is the Francophone three-minute thesis format. 7MT is seven minutes, open to founders and builders as well as researchers, and is not a thesis-only contest. We are not a partner, licensee, or regional organiser of 3MT, Falling Walls, or MT180. The comparison exists because applicants ask, and because the shared idea — severe time, almost no slides — is worth naming honestly. Longer notes: The Field and About.

Eligibility, video files, and which city to pick: apply@7mt.org. Hosting a heat or supporting the prize pool: partners@7mt.org. Press: press@7mt.org. Certificate reissue or anything else: hello@7mt.org. We reply within two business days. Check Apply, Compete, and Contact first — if the answer is already on the site we will send you the link.