Announcement
HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2022
Posted on 24th February 2022
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is pleased to announce the HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2022 (“Competition”) will take place in June 2022.
Witnessing the growth of entrepreneurial activities in our region, the Competition aims to provide a platform for HKUST and surrounding community members an integrative learning experience to create and evaluate new business and to prepare students to start their future career in entrepreneurship. Winners of the Competition can use the cash prize as seed money to build their own company or to further the commercialisation of their inventions and scientific researches. To encourage teams with plans utilizing HKUST technologies and/or have members from different schools within HKUST, they will be eligible for additional cash awards, if they are winners of the Platinum, Gold or Silver Awards at the Final Round of judging.
We are thrilled to announced the top three winners will also be awarded the HKUST 30th Anniversary Special Award, to celebrate the effort and impact HKUST had created since the inception of the university.
To attract high quality teams to join force with HKUST students and faculties, there are different channels for interested parties to participate in the Competition. Winning teams from internal and external competitions recognized by the Entrepreneurship Center, as well as nominated teams by all schools in HKUST can be fast-tracked to Round 2 of the Competition.
To foster the entrepreneurial atmosphere in HKUST community and encourage the involvement of all its community members, we hold our first Product Introduction Video Q&A Activity for the HKUST community. HKUST community members are encouraged to view the videos online and participate in the Q&A activity about the videos and win prize while leaning all the innovative ideas from the Round 2 teams. This also provide a good promotion channel for the slected team. Up to 70 teams’ video will be uploaded and shared with HKUST community and public.
To encourage participants to get their businesses going, and further reinforce the practical focus of this Competition, we have put together a suite of services for all applicants and awardees including company set up support for competition teams. For details, please refer section “In-Kind Awards” under “Awards”.
Additionally, we will continue to have this competition in 7 different regions including this one in our Clear Water Bay Campus. The 3 winning teams will compete with other winning teams from Beijing, Foshan, Guangzhou, Macau, Shenzhen and Yangtse River Delta in the Grand Final, which will be held later in 2022.
Participants: The Competition is open to all full-time and part-time students at all levels, post-docs, alumni, researchers, faculty and staff from all departments within HKUST. It is also open to local, mainland and international schools who want to compete in this Competition under the condition that the team must have at least one HKUST faculty or student or alumni or staff from Round 2 onwards.
Submissions: All submissions will be in English and must be submitted online (Link to be provided when the application platform is opened), no paper entries will be accepted. There will not be a limit on the topics for submission, however, we encourage applicants to focus on the technology and innovation driven business. The topics can be related to nanotechnology, information technology, renewable energy, environment, healthcare, financial services, logistics and social enterprise. For submission details, please refer to “Application & Eligibility”, “Submission Rules”.
Judging Process: The assessment process consists of 4 rounds: Product Introduction Video Round, One Pager Executive Summary Round, Exhibition with Pitching Session and Full Business Plan Presentation which will take place from March to June 2022. For details of the judging process, please refer to “Judging Process”.
Awards: Winners of the HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2022 will be awarded with cash prizes. The Competition will also provide the participants a chance to introduce their business plans to an international panel of investors and executives, while making a name for themselves within the HKUST community and in Hong Kong.
Application Deadline: We invite interested parties to submit their online applications with their 1-min Product Introduction Video for the Round 1 Assessment on or before 23 March 2022.