Six teams of HKUST students, UGs and PGs from all the Schools, have had the rare opportunity in going through a life-changing experience in the past 6 months when they have gained insights into the global market during their pre-entrepreneurial development. At the end of the 6 months of training and mentoring, four of the teams, "BitExTract", "Game Changer", "Stand for U" and "WWOD", became the Finalists and granted a cash prize of HK$100,000 each.

 

Details of the CUPP: http://cupp.cyberport.hk/eng/front_programmes/index

 

The teams have a number of creative FinTech ideas that strike the hearts of the judges in the CUPP Demo Day held on 23 Oct 2018. All the ideas have potential business values and were converted into interesting and feasible business models that can be further developed into the commercial sector.

 

The team BitExTract is formed by three HKUST students. YUE Xuanwu(https://xuanwu.info), a PhD candidate in CSE, specialized in data visualization, supervised by Prof. QU Huamin(http://huamin.org/), has partnered with his classmates LEE Lik Hang and LAM Kit Yung, also a PhD candidate/student and the winners of 2017-2018 Uptown x HKUSTEC E-commerce Challenge, to develop a system offering user an easy to use tool for analyzing cryptocurrency transaction and operation. LEE Lik Hang said they could make good use of their technical knowledge not only for in-lab research but also for entrepreneurship development. The students are planning to further develop it base on the current success and feedback from the industry.

 

Caspar, GBUS student, from the team Game Changer found it a golden opportunity that he treasures a lot as he could put his interest in FinTech development into reality through the great support from the many professionals in the Program. He appreciates very much the assistance, inspiration, support and advice given by the university staff during the course of the Program. Their product, Knosy, aims to provide fully or semi-automated auditing for entities in cryptocurrency industry as well as external auditors.

 

“I really appreciate your support from hackUST2016’s ValueRide to CUPP2018’s RewardChain. Thank you so much for your encouragement in all these years. They made a huge difference in my HKUST experience. As a final year student, I feel amazed how much supports I got from you and UST in the past few years.” said Michael Wong from the team RewardChain, Dual Degree Program (BEng in Computer Science and BBA in General Business Management).

 

The Team Stand for U received the award with their project, Bills to Deals, which provides consumer consumption data analytics to small merchants to help them make better business decisions. "Our team would like to thank EC for offering this platform for us to embark our entrepreneurial adventure. EC has been one of the partners in CUPP for a few years, thus a lot of CUPP UST alumnus have been very supportive towards our project and provided great insights in our business plans and technical implementations. Our team is looking forward to leveraging the programs in EC to continue our entrepreneurial journey." said Eugene YAU (BBA in Information Systems and Economics) from the team Stand for U.

 

"The programme is a good chance for us to review and further enhance our project, so as to provide confidence in consumption decisions to the users by our application. We really appreciate the assistance and support by HKUST." said Gary HO from the team WWOD. They propose an angel-on-the-shoulder application that steps in during users' moment of vulnerability, the moment prior to their impulsive spending, and lets them know what decision to make.

 

“I am very proud of the students and their success. I am also very happy to offer them advice and support they need to facilitate their participation and development. Although not everyone could be Finalists, all of the participants are already winners as they have not only acquired valuable advice and training but also friendship and inspiration that are life-long with them. This is a milestone for everyone in front of other interesting challenges.” said Donny Siu, Associate Director of Entrepreneurship Center.

 

Information about CUPP 2019 will be announced in around Feb 2019.