The fine print.

MAIC

The Malaysia AI Conference & Challenge.

Organisers

Solara Global Media Sdn. Bhd. and Solarvest Holdings Berhad, jointly.

Participant / Team

Any individual or group of up to five (5) members submitting an application.

Team Leader

The team member designated to submit and manage the application on behalf of the team.

Malaysian Citizen Requirement

Every team must include at least one Malaysian citizen (MyKad holder). Permanent Residents and international students do not satisfy this requirement.

Artifact

A working, judge-accessible deliverable as defined under each Track Axis.

Participation is open to applicants of any nationality, age or professional status. There is no academic, employment or residency requirement.

Startup teams may apply provided the startup was incorporated within the past five (5) years as of the application submission date.

The Organisers may verify eligibility at any time. A startup team found to be older than five (5) years at the time of application, or to have provided inaccurate eligibility information, may be disqualified, including during the Preliminary Round.

Mandatory: every team must include at least one (1) Malaysian citizen (MyKad holder), designated by full legal name at the time of application. Permanent Residents and international students do not satisfy this requirement. Malaysian citizens living or working abroad are eligible. This person is the team's contact of record for prize disbursement and equity terms.

Employees and immediate family members of Organisers and judges are not eligible to participate.

Teams may consist of one (1) to five (5) members. Solo applicants are permitted.

An individual may be listed on only one (1) team. Cross-team participation will result in disqualification of all affected teams.

Team member additions, removals or substitutions are permitted only between stages and only with prior written approval from the Organisers. Mid-stage changes are not permitted under any circumstance.

Applications open 11 June 2026 (at the Official Launch Event) and close 31 August 2026 at 23:59 (MYT). No extensions will be granted save at the Organisers' sole written discretion.

Entry is limited to 100 teams on a strict first-come, first-served basis. The Organisers reserve the right to close registration early once this limit is reached.

The competition runs in four stages: Application → Preliminary Round (online) → Semi-Final → Grand Final. Advancement at each stage is determined solely by judging outcomes.

Participation is governed by a two-tier agreement. Basic participation terms are accepted at registration. Teams advancing to the Semi-Final must additionally execute a Participation & Release Agreement covering intellectual property, confidentiality, data sharing, media release, and prize and investment terms. Execution of this agreement is a condition precedent to presenting at the Semi-Final; a team that has not executed it before its scheduled presentation slot may be withdrawn from the Challenge at the Organisers' discretion.

The registration fee — RM 150 (early bird, until 15 July 2026), RM 250 (fair early bird, 16 July – 8 August 2026), or RM 500 (standard, from 9 August 2026) — is payable once per team and is non-refundable, save as expressly provided in this clause.

Where a team is disqualified pursuant to Clause 14 (Disqualification), any registration fee paid by that team is forfeited in full and no refund is payable.

If the Organisers cancel or postpone the Event, each participant is entitled to a full refund of the registration fee paid. The applicable refund processing timeframe will be published separately.

Each team must submit, by the published deadline, the materials defined on the Apply page. The pitch deck, project summary and AI disclosure statement are mandatory at application; the demo video, repo/demo link, technical architecture document and member profiles are recommended and may be added or updated from the team dashboard until the relevant judging window.

The repo/demo link must be publicly accessible during the judging window for the relevant stage. Private repositories, gated demos or content behind authentication walls will be treated as a non-submission.

Repositories submitted as artifacts must show at least three (3) commits over a minimum of two (2) calendar days, dated prior to the submission deadline.

During each stage's judging review period (dates published by the Organisers via the team dashboard and email notice), submitted materials are locked and cannot be edited without prior Organiser approval. Team composition changes during this period are governed by Clause 03.

If the Organisers detect that a submitted link (deck, video, repo/demo, or other artifact) is invalid, broken, or inaccessible, the team will be notified by email and via a dashboard announcement. The team must resolve the issue within twenty-four (24) hours of notification, and in any case before the close of the relevant judging window. A link left unresolved after this period will be treated as a non-submission for that material.

Each team must select one (1) Industry (T1 — T6) at submission. The selection is locked at submission and cannot be changed at any subsequent stage.

Submissions that materially diverge from the declared Industry at any stage may be disqualified at the Organisers' discretion.

Preliminary submissions are reviewed by professionals across relevant industries using the published stage rubric. Each criterion is scored on a 1 – 10 scale and weighted to a 100-point total.

Submissions are assessed across five criteria — Technical Feasibility (25%), Commercial Viability (25%), Industry Relevance (20%), Scalability (15%) and ESG / National Impact (15%).

Judging decisions are final and not subject to appeal, except in cases of demonstrable procedural error raised in writing within 72 hours of result publication.

The Organisers may offer an optional live pitching session during a stage's review period. Participation is voluntary and has no effect on a team's score, ranking, or advancement at that stage. Once submitted, opt-in is final; cancellation requests are handled at the Organisers' discretion via the published contact channel.

The MAIC Nexus Challenge awards a total prize pool of RM 388,000 in cash and equity investment across all award categories. The cash and equity allocation for each category is confirmed and published prior to Finals.

Equity investment is made on terms set out in a separate investment agreement (see the incorporation requirement below). Trophies, certificates and merit gifts are provided to the relevant award holders as published.

Cash prizes are disbursed to the bank account of the team's incorporated Malaysian private limited company (Sdn. Bhd.), once the incorporation and documentation requirements below are satisfied.

Any cash award and equity investment for the three (3) winning teams (Grand Champion, Runner-Up, 2nd Runner-Up) is conditional on the team incorporating a Malaysian private limited company (Sdn. Bhd.) with at least one (1) Malaysian director. Incorporation is a condition precedent to receiving any cash award or investment.

The team must submit to the Organisers documents evidencing the incorporation of the Sdn. Bhd., including the incorporation documents, details of directors and shareholders, and any other documents reasonably required by the Organisers, together with the company's bank account details for receiving the cash award.

The equity component of the Prize is optional. A winning team may elect to accept or decline the equity component without affecting its cash entitlement. Accepting the equity component constitutes an agreement to negotiate the equity investment in good faith. Equity terms (instrument, valuation, governance) will be set out in a separate Equity Investment Agreement consistent with prevailing market terms for seed-stage capital in Malaysia.

Time-limited co-investment rights in favour of the Organisers and their appointed investment entities — a right of first offer and a right of first refusal — apply only to the three winning teams (Grand Champion, Runner-Up and 2nd Runner-Up). They do not apply to any other participating team.

These rights do not oblige any team to accept investment; a winning team remains free to decline the equity component of its Prize. The detailed terms, including all applicable time periods and conditions, will be set out in a separate investment agreement provided to teams advancing to the Grand Final.

Teams retain full, unencumbered ownership of the source code, model weights and specific agentic workflows developed for the Challenge. The Organisers acquire no ownership rights in this core technology. Pre-existing code, open-source models and third-party APIs remain the property of their respective owners, and teams are responsible for complying with all applicable open-source licences.

By participating, teams grant the Organisers a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use, display and distribute the team's submission artifacts (including pitch deck, project summary, team name and video demo) for broadcasting, marketing and public relations purposes.

The judging committee and technical reviewers may be granted temporary access to inspect a team's code repository strictly for scoring and verification purposes. Such access terminates at the conclusion of the relevant judging stage.

Teams advancing to the Semi-Final must execute a Participation & Release Agreement, under which they additionally agree to:

• Use any non-public datasets, APIs, software or other confidential information provided by the Organisers, track sponsors or mentors solely for their Challenge submission, and permanently delete sponsor-provided data within seven (7) calendar days of the Grand Final or their elimination from the Challenge, whichever occurs first;
• Be photographed, filmed, recorded and live-streamed during the Semi-Final and Grand Final stages, with such media usable by the Organisers for broadcasting, marketing and public relations purposes without expectation of compensation;
• In the case of Grand Finalists, attend a due-diligence interview with the Organisers ahead of the Grand Final.

The full terms of these obligations are set out in the Participation & Release Agreement provided to each team advancing to the Semi-Final.

Organisers reserve the right to disqualify any team for, including but not limited to:

• Material misrepresentation in the application or Anchor designation
• Plagiarism, fraudulent artifacts or commits backdated to feign development
• Cross-team participation by any individual
• Track misrepresentation at any stage
• Failure to honour judging access requirements for the artifact
• Conduct in breach of event code of conduct at any in-person stage

Personal data submitted via the MAIC Nexus portal is processed in accordance with Malaysia's Personal Data Protection Act 2010 (PDPA) and the MAIC Privacy Notice. It is used by the Organisers, judges and partner organisations for competition administration and prize disbursement.

For teams advancing to the Semi-Final, and with their consent under the Participation & Release Agreement, member profiles, technical assessments and code commit histories may also be shared with the Huntier talent pipeline, affiliated venture partners and corporate sponsors, for the purposes of recruitment and hiring outreach, acqui-hire evaluation, and investment / venture-building evaluation. No other third-party disclosure purpose applies unless separately consented to.

Data of non-advancing participants is retained for 24 months; data of Semi-Finalists and beyond is retained for 36 months — both counted from the date of collection. Thereafter it is deleted or anonymised.

You may withdraw consent to the processing of your personal data at any time by writing to admin@maicnexus.com. Requests are resolved within fourteen (14) calendar days, subject to any data the Organisers are required to retain by law.

Organisers may amend these Terms & Conditions. Material amendments will be published on this page and notified to participants by email. Where these Terms differ from the Participation & Release Agreement executed by a team advancing to the Semi-Final, the Agreement prevails for that team.

These Terms are governed by the laws of Malaysia. Any dispute arising from or relating to MAIC or these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.