Participate in this prestigious design competition, a steppingstone to your future career.

Innovate Malaysia Design Competition is the largest design competition in Malaysia, open to all third year or final year degree engineering, computer science, IT, and science/mathematics students. The goal of the competition is to promote innovative culture in engineering design work, tackle real-world problems with practical engineering solutions, and churn out brightest talents for product development, further research, and commercialization. We welcome the most ambitious, creative, and smart students to participate and showcase your talents!

adjust What Do I Get

  • acquire industry desired skills on technology platform, technical competency, industry domain knowledge, & design innovation.
  • supplied state-of-the-art industry technology platform for your final year project.
  • receive project mentorship from industry experts
  • gain exposure to real-world problems
  • priority access to high-value jobs offered by participating companies
  • challenge yourselves, prove yourselves, and benchmark yourselves, graduate with pride
  • showcase your talent, distinguish yourselves from others!
  • chance to win attractive prizes

Much more than just a competition...


adjust Competition Timeline

Date Activity
30 Nov 2022 (Extended) Project proposal submission deadline ( guide & sample )
19 Dec 2022 Announce shortlisted entries
Dec 2022 - Jun 2023 Project implementation
Dec 2022 - Feb 2023 Trainings
Mar 2023 Mid-point clinic
22 May 2023 Project paper submission
29 May 2023 Project presentation video submission
Jun 2023 Preliminary judging
7 Aug 2023 Grand Finale

adjust Competition Tracks

Teams to choose one of the competition tracks listed below:


adjust Competition Rules

  • Team members must be from the same university in Malaysia, or Malaysian students studying abroad.
  • Each team should choose a competition track to participate.
  • Each team should have 1 to 3 members consisting of third year or final year students.
  • Each team should have an advisor who is the lecturer from the same university.
  • There is no limit on the number of teams from each university.

adjust Competition Judging

format_list_bulleted Competition Tracks

Judges will be experts from respective competition track sponsors. Projects will be judged on their innovation, specification or validation plan, practicality, complexity, and working design.

Judging Criteria:

  • 30 marks - Innovation
  • 20 marks - Specification or Validation plan
  • 10 marks - Practicality
  • 10 marks - Complexity
  • 30 marks - Working design
format_list_bulleted DreamCatcher Best Demo Video Award

This award is opened to teams qualifying to the competition grand finale. Winner will be selected among teams that obtain minimum 500 likes in Facebook.

Judging Criteria:

  • Clarity of project showcase from problem statement, current constraints, innovations, solution demo, to impacts
  • Engaging visual and speech narration to audience (including non-technical)
  • Significance of the project, including problem tackled, innovations and impacts of the project
format_list_bulleted IEM Best Paper Award

This award is opened to teams qualifying to the competition grand finale. The judging is based on the final project paper submitted.

Judging Criteria:

  1. The overall length of the conference paper should not be more than 5 pages. The marks are given until page 5, which is the last page of the conference paper. Any content beyond page 5 will not be included for the marks.
  2. 55 marks - Overall Idea Development
    • 5 marks - Clarity of abstract
    • 5 marks - Justified problem statement
    • 5 marks - Adequacy of research objective
    • 5 marks - Adequacy of literature review
    • 10 marks - Appropriateness of design of experiment (strength of research framework)
    • 10 marks - Reliability of data
    • 10 marks - Adequacy of results analysis and discussion
    • 5 marks - Conciseness of conclusion
  3. 20 marks - Language
    • 5 marks - Usage of acceptable terminology in respective field
    • 5 marks - Construction of sentence (grammar, spelling etc.)
    • 5 marks - Conciseness
    • 5 marks - Overall Readability of paper
  4. 15 marks - Consistency of Format and Structure
    • 5 marks - Overall organization of paper:
      • Flow of paper
      • Completeness of major sections
    • 10 marks - Consistency of formats:
      • Fonts, bullets, table, figure, etc.
      • Citation and references
      • Clarity of figure and table
  5. 10 marks - Reference
    • 5 marks - Relevancy of references
    • 5 marks - Up-to-date references
format_list_bulleted IET Green Technology Award

This award is opened to finalist teams qualifying to the competition grand finale, with projects related to green technology. The award is given by the Institution of Engineering and Technology. The judging is based on social responsibility, environment sustainability, and green technology.

Judging Criteria:

  • 20 marks - Project significance to environment (addressing current issue)
  • 20 marks - Innovation & creativity
  • 20 marks - Product demonstration
  • 20 marks - Sustainability to Environment
  • 20 marks - Engineering knowledge contribution
format_list_bulleted James Dyson Foundation Innovation Award

This award is opened to all finalist teams qualifying to the competition grand finale. The award is given by the James Dyson Foundation, the organizer of the international James Dyson Award. Judging will be based on the similar principles as the James Dyson Award on innovative product design and industrial design that employ clever yet simple engineering principles. A sustainable design, technically and commercially viable projects will be added advantage.

format_list_bulleted Innovate Malaysia Excellence Award

This is the overall winner award selected among the first prize winners of each technology tracks. Team of judges consists of representatives from government agencies, professional body, and industry.

Judging Criteria:

  • 10 marks - Innovativeness of project
  • 10 marks - Impact to Rakyat
  • 10 marks - Potential for commercialization

adjust Competition Prizes

military_tech Competition Tracks Prizes
For each competition track:
  • First prize: RM5,000
  • Second prize: RM3,000
  • Third prize: RM1,000
  • Consolation prizes: RM500 x 2
military_tech DreamCatcher Best Demo Video Award

Cash prize of RM3,000.

military_tech IEM Best Paper Award

Cash prize of RM1,500.

military_tech IET Green Technlogy Award

Cash prize of RM1,500.

military_tech Innovate Malaysia Excellence Award

Innovate Malaysia Excellence Award trophy.

adjust Past Winners