There’s going to be a bit of a change this year in the Pitching Den at Invest Atlantic.

The fourth annual Invest Atlantic conference will be held at the Halifax World Trade and Convention Centre on Sept. 25, and like its three predecessors it will include pitchers telling the hundreds of delegates about their companies. In the previous years, the Pitching Den has been the final segment of the conference, with the winner usually walking away with beer tickets and bragging rights.

This year, Bob Williamson, the head of Invest Atlantic, is trying something different. He’s organized Pitch101 events around the region at which young companies deliver one-minute pitches to a panel of experts. The top pitch wins $500 and an invitation to enter the Pitching Den at Invest Atlantic.

The second Pitch101 event was held at Dalhousie University in Halifax on Friday and the winner was CompCamp, the Halifax-based computer camp for children and teenagers, represented by Co-Founder Taylor Quinn. A month earlier, the event in Charlottetown crowned Ryan Keliher as the winner for his United World Changewear, which proposes to work with charities in producing T-shirts bearing their message.

So here’s the change: the Pitching Den has four slots, and two of the slots for this year’s event have already been given to social enterprises.

To understand why that’s significant, we should look at the past Pitching Dens. They have all been judged by panels of international experts, ranging from venture capitalists to serial entrepreneurs to tech gurus. And these grandees removed the kid gloves before sitting at the judges’ table.

In each of the three events, the judges were tough, really tough, even though the companies that have gone through the Pitching Den are a formidable group of entrepreneurs. (I biased: I’ve worked with Williamson on the past three Invest Atlantic and selected the pitchers for the Den. I also help out the CompCamp founders.)

So far there have been 12 companies in the Pitching Den and collectively they’ve raised about $7 million in venture capital and angel money throughout their existence. Several have raised close to or more than $1 million, such as Neurodyn of Charlottetown, ZapTap of Fredericton, Adfinitum of St. John’s, CarbonCure and LeadSift, both of Halifax. My point is the Pitching Den judges may have poked holes in the pitches, but in real life these companies have proved they’re fundable.

And yet several of these companies got roughed up by the judges, who were embracing their inner Kevin O’Leary and assessing the pitches purely on their investment potential. This year something will be different.

CompCamp and United World Changewear are sterling examples of social entrepreneurship, and their focus is not simply on making money but on improving society. I have to wonder how they would fit into a Pitching Den that so far has been focused exclusively on investment potential.

Williamson told me yesterday he is aware of the way the Pitching Den is shaping up and may look at new structures this year – possibly with a pitching session for the Pitch101 winners and another for more developed companies.

Either way, Pitch101 is developing into part of the landscape, after attracting sellout audiences in both Halifax and Charlottetown. On Friday, about 100 people registered for the event, which featured 13 pitchers. The $300 second prize was awarded to Shea Kewin, a Co-Founder of Spring Loaded Technology, which is designing a knee-brace that strengthens the joint. Reg Manzer, whose Bluehills Orchards will produce the lucrative haskap berries, captured the $200 third prize.

Williamson said there will be more Pitch101 events in the near future. He wants to round out the Atlantic Provinces with sessions in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. And he’s in talks about having another Pitch101 session in P.E.I. and possibly a few more in other parts of Nova Scotia.