Innovative ideas worth a million dollars

June 29, 2018

Three teams comprising HKUST students, alumni and their international peers have won over 100 contesting teams to gain the top three prizes of the HKUST-Sino One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition 2018.  They will compete with the finalists from six different cities in the Grand Final to be held at the University’s Fok Ying Tung Research Institute, Nansha in August.

Continued to expand in both scale and depth, HKUST introduced new initiatives to the University’s signature annual competition this year, enhancing participation of the public and young entrepreneurs across Hong Kong and from abroad.  A new public voting session for the Elevator Pitch Award, for example, had drawn almost 700 votes while the new online matching platform has helped HKUST contestants identify partners from institutions outside of Hong Kong, fostering diversity.  Meanwhile, Beijing, Shenzhen, Foshan and Zhongshan have started their competitions while the two staged by Macau and Nansha had come to a close.

Sinocore Biotechnology Ltd – champion of the Hong Kong episode – won the President Award, the Innovation Award and The Mills Sustainability Prize, with a refined version of flocculant – a substance that not only can separate sludge from sewage now, but can also disintegrate the sludge and allow its fermentation.  The fermentation process takes only about 30 days to convert sludge into fertilizer – 120 times faster than the current process, which takes about 10 years. Members of the team comprises graduates from HKUST, Shanghai Tongji University and Yokohama National University in Japan.

Miscato Ltd and I-Square Technology were the other two teams who won the GF Securities Gold and Silver Awards respectively.  Miscato developed an innovative in-room aromatherapy diffusing system, using big data analysis; the system allows hotels to diffuse customized aroma in hotel rooms at dates and time specified by the guests.  I-Square Technology developed an anti-counterfeiting and verification solution for brand products; consumers can authenticate the goods easily by scanning the image-embedded barcode on the products’ packaging with smart phones.

Meanwhile, Abida Medical Ltd won the Elevator Pitch Award and the Nan Fung Health Tech Award.  Leveraging portable ultrasound imaging technology and artificial intelligence, the startup developed a handy breast cancer screening device called Mamosound, allowing users to do check-up easily at home and spot any irregularities at early stage.

Mr. Andrew Young, Associate Director (Innovation) of Sino Group said, “It was a hard decision to choose the winner from the finalists as they were all fairly good. I was particularly impressed by the balanced consideration of the business model, technology development, team structure and the proposed execution plan. The winner displayed well thought of all the mentioned items, including a viable execution plan, environmental protection and team management, to deliver an environmental-friendly solution solving a real life issue.”

Prof. Gary Chan, Director of HKUST’s Entrepreneurship Center, said: “We are proud to see the competition grow further again this year not only in scale, but also in terms of innovative ideas, quality of business proposals and execution of their plans.”