Han Ximin, Gong Ting

ximhan@126.com

THE Third China (Shenzhen) Innovation & Entrepreneurship International Competition attracted 1,850 projects that were registered on http://www.itcsz.cn, the official website of Shenzhen Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, the organizer said in a release Tuesday.

The number is an increase of 27 percent over the previous year’s competition.

The preliminaries for the competition will be held this month in 10 overseas cities and regions, namely Madrid, Boston, Stockholm, Sydney, Toronto, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Silicon Valley and London. Across all of the contests, from the overseas preliminaries to the finals in China, the organizer is offering a total of 11.2 million yuan (US$1.67 million) in awards.

More than 100 winning projects in the preliminary contests will compete for the top awards in the professional contest final, industry contest final and overall final. The overall winner will receive a top award of 1.4 million yuan.

The contestants will gain exposure to 40 well-known investment institutions, which form an innovation and investment capital pool of 25 billion yuan and will make portfolio investments in the outstanding projects in the competition.

Of the 1,850 items, 741 come from the Internet and mobile Internet sectors, accounting for 40 percent of total applicants. The registrations from the electronics, and biology and life science industries each account for 20 percent of the total. Forty percent of applicants are from Europe and 32 percent come from North America.

According to the organizer, all participating projects can gain investment opportunities from venture capital through the competition’s investment docking service platform.

In last year’s contest, the organizer attracted more than 1,460 outstanding projects worldwide and selected 135 projects for the finals in Shenzhen. The winners of the finals will be awarded at the opening of the Conference on International Exchange of Professionals at Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center in April.