The 2nd China (Shenzhen) Innovation & Entrepreneurship International Competition has been officially launched on December 1, 2017. Directed by Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China and State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs of People's Republic of China, this competition is sponsored by the Shenzhen Municipal People's Government and undertaken by Shenzhen Baoan District People's Government, Shenzhen Longgang District People's Government, Shenzhen Pingshan District People's Government, Shenzhen Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, Shenzhen Municipal Commission of Science and Technology Innovation. Actively responding to China's call of "Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation", the competition deeply implements innovation-driven development strategy, gathers overseas high-end talent quality projects, integrates innovative entrepreneurial resources, and helps Shenzhen build international science and technology, industry innovation center.
The competition will be open for registration from December 1, 2017 to February 28, 2018. In March 2018, 9 overseas competitions will be held in 9 cities in 8 countries all over the world, and project pre-selection of the professional competition will be started simultaneously. In April 2018, more than 100 excellent projects promoted by overseas competitions and professional competitions will gather in Shenzhen and aim for the highest honor and award in the competition, performing various rounds of fierce competition by Professional Finals, Industry Finals and Finals. In addition to big bonuses, the competition also provides policy support such as talent incentives, industry awards, science and technology finance and project incubation for talents, teams and projects in Shenzhen.
There are four major characteristics of the international competition:
First, keep an eye on the high end and expand the competition scale. In order to attract more overseas talents to start their own businesses in Shenzhen, this International Competition will continue to focus on the cities and regions gathering overseas high-level talent and expand the scale of competition. On the basis of 8 overseas competition in the last competition, overseas competitions in Boston, USA and Stockholm, Sweden are newly set, and competition in Bangalore, India is cancelled, reaching 9 overseas competitions, namely: Sydney, Australia; Toronto, Canada; Berlin, Germany; Tel Aviv, Israel; Tokyo, Japan; Stockholm, Sweden; Boston, USA; Silicon Valley, USA and London, England.
Second, plan the future and improve professional standards. In order to vigorously implement the innovation-driven development strategy and form the industrial structure of echelon development and new competitive advantages, on the basis of original 5 major industry competitions of Internet, advanced manufacturing, electronic technology, biology and life sciences, materials and energy (including energy saving and environmental protection), this international competition adds 3 professional competitions of Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Anti-cancer Technology and awards and bonuses for the future key industries in Shenzhen.
Projects that meet the conditions of professional competition can also sign for professional competitions while participating in industry competitions. In order to encourage more entrepreneurs to participate in the upsurge of innovation and entrepreneurship in Shenzhen, the bonus of this International Games is even more substantial, raising the total bonus to RMB 10.91 million yuan from RMB 9.112 million yuan last year. Awards and bonuses are set in four competition sections in this international competition, namely, the overseas finals (total bonus of 2,610,000 yuan), professional competitions (total bonus of 1.5 million), the industry finals (total bonus of 2.5 million) and the finals (total bonus of 4.3 million), where a individual player will have the opportunity to get a total bonus of RMB 1.4 million yuan.
Fourth, gather resources and promote market participation. There are 34 entrepreneurship and investment institutions participating in this international competition. Led by a number of well-known investment institutions such as Green Pine Capital Partners, Shenzhen Innovation Investment Group, Orient Fortune Capital and COWINCAPITAL that directly match with the competition, which forms an innovation and investment capital pool of total RMB 20.9 billion yuan that makes portfolio investment for outstanding projects of the competition. Investors from investment institutions in our city will serve as judges and mentors and go deep into various countries and competition areas to carry out project docking activities during the sub-competitions. All participating projects can gain investment opportunities of social capital through the investment docking service platform of the competition. Meanwhile, two banks will be selected to carry out various forms of financial service solutions such as "Investment & Financing Loan" and "Talent Loan", so as to enrich the financing choices of land-based enterprises and help participants to faster realize landing development.
Our city has been hosting the innovation and entrepreneurship competition overseas for two consecutive years, successfully attracting more than 1,800 outstanding projects from 24 countries. Seeing from the nationalities of the participants, there are 982 foreign players, accounting for 53.8% of the total. The competition finals have invited Barry Marshall, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, George Slimt, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, and Donald Wright, the president of the Wellington Financial Group in Canada, as judges, which has fully demonstrated the image of international city of Shenzhen. In terms of participants, participants with a master degree or above accounted for 67% of the total enrollment, including more than 40% participants with a Doctoral degree. From the perspective of participating projects, all of them are high-end projects in strategic emerging industries. The categories of projects are mainly concentrated in the Internet and mobile Internet (information technology) industries (31.8%), electronic technology industry (29.5%), and biomedicine industry (18.1%). Judges consider that most of the projects are in high quality that meet the industrial development needs of our city. According to the competition results, for the 99 projects participating in the finals, 65 projects have reached initial cooperation with various parks in our city, and 11 projects have officially settled in Shenzhen. Four people have been identified as Shenzhen Peacock Plan Talents and one project Team has won the funding from Shenzhen Peacock team.
Shenzhen's high-quality environment for innovation and entrepreneurship has impressed overseas talents through the international competition, while the city image of innovative city of Shenzhen and its popularity overseas have been further enhanced. As a platform to stimulate the innovation potential and innovation vitality of the whole society, the competition provides the driving force for innovation-driven development and creates new opportunities for technological innovation in Shenzhen. As a window of reform and opening up and an emerging immigrant city, Shenzhen has attracted talents at home and abroad for entrepreneurial development for its open, inclusive and innovative culture. Shenzhen has become a paradise for entrepreneurs all over the world.
The registration of this competition started on December 1, 2017, with deadline of the end of February 2018. Please log in to the official website http://itcsz.cn/ for registration.
