The 1st “Greater Bay Sapling Cup”
Background
The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong (HSUHK) Greater Bay Area Innogration Hub (the “Innogration Hub”) focuses on the integration and development of innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as the promotion of humanistic development and employment in the Greater Bay Area. We firmly believe that for young leaders and entrepreneurs to excel, they must possess a humanistic spirit to complement their business ideas and knowledge background in order to effectively solve business problems and create meaningful societal impact. Therefore, we strive to provide young students, innovators and entrepreneurs with opportunities to participate in various events and relevant services to enhance their abilities in scientific innovation, starting and operating a business, leadership, humanistic communication and general education.
In the “Report on Promotion of STEM Education - Unleashing Potential in Innovation” , the Hong Kong SAR Government has pledged to renew and enrich the curricula and learning activities of Science, Technology and Mathematics, enhance the training of teachers, step up efforts to promote STEM education and encourage students to pursue the study of STEM-related subjects. STEM education is currently promoted through the Science, Technology and Mathematics Education Key Learning Areas in primary and secondary schools.
With a view to promote STEM education for secondary school students in Hong Kong and develop innovative and entrepreneurial thinking, the Innogration Hub has put forward this proposal for an innovation and entrepreneurship competition, offering a brand new training model for the academia. Through lectures and workshops under the guidance of expert guest lecturers, we aim to spread the basic knowledge of STEM, stimulate students’ innovation potentials, and equip them with the necessary tools to deal with challenges in the 21st century. On another hand, through the competition, we strive to stimulate students the abilities to transform innovative ideas and technologies into real-life applications, and to help schools adopt and integrate this type of exercise as part of their innovative training curriculum. By doing this together, we aim to enrich students with both humanistic spirit and advanced scientific and innovative thinking, and to enhance the branding of schools in their abilities to offer quality STEM education focusing on the development needs of students. Talents incubated with a more holistic view would be better equipped to make meaningful impact to our local communities and beyond, as well as to make Hong Kong shine on the world stage.
Lectures on popular science and entrepreneurship training – energizing innovation
The Innogration Hub organizes various lecture and salon-based entrepreneurship training and counselling courses for students and young entrepreneurs. Supported by business professionals of different fields, including CEOs from multinational corporations and successful entrepreneurs, experts from universities and research institutions such as professors and industry domain experts, as well as experienced angel investors, the Innogration Hub is well equipped to provide all-rounded counselling and advisory services in helping young entrepreneurs and business leaders to succeed.
Organizer
Undertaker
Competition Schedule
Entry Registration: September to November 2019
Preliminary and intermediary competitions: November to December 2019
Final: Mid to late March 2020
The preliminary and intermediary stages of the competition could be arranged by the schools based on their own circumstances. Schools are asked to select 5-10 projects for submission to the Innogration Hub for the next round. The Innogration Hub will then pick 20 outstanding projects to enter into the final round. On request, the Innogration Hub and Hang Seng University could offer schools adjudicators and services including interpretation on judging criteria and training. The Innogration Hub would also provide free online promotion services by publishing on its official website, Facebook page, WeChat official account and other online platforms, in order to raise brand awareness for the schools..
Business plans for the final, entries and other materials could be submitted through the Innogration Hub’s official website or by email.
Questions raised by teachers, students and parents will soon be addressed by an online FAQ platform being developed by the Innogration Hub. For questions not addressed
Targets
Sign up for the competition as a team with no fewer than 3 and no more than 7 actual members. The entries submitted must be planned and operated by the team. Entering using work done by others is strictly prohibited. Depending on the stage of the project, the competition is split into Creative and Start-ups groups. The specific entry requirements are as follows:
A. For Creative group
The submitted entry is considered innovative that comes with a prototype or service model that has not completed any commercial registrations. The applicant must be the team leader and a secondary school student.
B. For Start-ups group
The submitted entry has completed commercial registration and the applicant must be the legal representative of the corporation. He/ she can be a current secondary school student, a recent graduate or an alumnus recommended by the school (subject to review).
Entry projects
Theme: Embracing the new technological era and realizing the dream of innovation and entrepreneurship together.
Entry projects are required to incorporate new generation technologies such as fintech, robotics, AI, internet, cloud computing, big data, medical technology into both social and economic aspects or our society, thereby allowing STEM to function as the enabler of industrial upgrades and an integrator of technology and data . An innovative service model is expected integrating technologies in making our daily lives smarter.
Entry requirements
Entries must be valid, legal and without indecent or obscene contents.
Entries must not violate others’ intellectual property rights.
All related inventions, patents and resources must be accompanied by supporting documents and/or certificates.
Should plagiarism, misappropriation, provision of false materials or violation of relevant laws and regulations are found, contestants would be disqualified and be legally liable to his/her behaviours
If entries involve intellectual property rights of others, written authorization for the use of IPs, patent certificates and other relevant documents of the legal owners must be submitted.
For entries that involve completed commercial registration, the applicants must submit relevant information including the company profile, legal representatives’ status, shareholding structure, etc. for further review and approval.
Competition system
1) The competition adopts a 3-level game system consisting of the preliminary, intermediary and final. School-level preliminary and intermediary are organized by the school. Projects qualified for the final round would be selected by the Innogration Hub based on criteria and quota set by the Committee. The number of teams entering into the final should not exceed 10 for each school.
2) Through the judges and online public voting, 20 projects would be selected to enter into the final round.
Contest rewards
1) After the intermediary competitions, schools in each division will select 5 to 10 projects to enter into final at the Innogration Hub. The Innogration Hub will select 20 projects to enter into final. In the final, 10 outstanding teams out of the 20 projects will be qualified for awards, with 1 champion, 2 first runners-ups, 3 second runners-ups and 4 outstanding teams.
Prizes for the champion, first runners-up and second runners-ups would be HK$3000, HK$2000 and HK$1000 respectively. The winning team would also receive certificates and trophies issued by the Innogration Hub and recommendation to participate in internship programs offered by renowned corporations. For projects that are ready for commercialization, the Innogration Hub would provide assisting services including investment and financing docking as well as incubation landing.
2) 5 Outstanding Organizing Team awards and plenty of Excellent Instructor awards will be set as well. Recipients of both awards would receive certificates issued by the Innogration Hub.
Creative workshop – cultivate and unleash the potential of gifted students
Through this competition, combined with the resources from various schools, we aim to jointly create a training curriculum for all Hong Kong secondary school students mainly concerned with innovation and entrepreneurship. By allowing the schools and students to gain more understandings on STEM and other technological areas, they could acquire knowledge and skills that can help nurture and unearth their hidden potential and creativity.
The Innogration Hub would also offer tutors and other training resources for various schools. By organizing regular Salons and entrepreneurship competitions, along with the concerted efforts of tutors, we would fully support the schools’ education and activities concerning innovation and entrepreneurship. Students would also have the opportunities to get to know about remarkable startups and exchange ideas with experienced tutors.
Appendix:
Hong Kong Blockchain Industry Association’s major objective is to promote Blockchain and related technologies to the general public as well as to encourage the innovations and applications of Blockchain technologies. Also, we encourage the union of blockchain development among academic, research and industries application.
We regularly organize various events to raise public awareness of the blockchain technologies. We believe that the awareness of the public and different industries stakeholders over the importance of blockchain technologies are essential to the success of the technology as well as the future of Hong Kong.
Website: https://www.hkblockchainindustry.com/en/
Our team:
Mr Rex Wong has more than 20 years of experience in the field of finance and fintech. He has attained the professional qualifications of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) ,Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and member of Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS). He is an accomplished financial professional with fintech advocacy and execution capability in financial optimization, capital market, investment, token economy, corporate restructuring, strategy, leadership, fintech, blockchain, smart city and corporate training.
With solid experience in assisting listed companies dealing with numerous investment projects and mergers and acquisitions, Mr Wong holds directors and senior management positions in the following companies:
Non-Executive Director, Vico International (1621.HK)
Independent Non-Executive Director, Guoan International (143.HK)
Independent Non-Executive Director, ZhaoBangJi (1660.HK)
Senior Partner, Sharenews Communication Consulting
Chairman, Blockchain Investment Fund
CF has strong passion over the development of entrepreneurism among youth members of our society, being an avid volunteer for a few organizations himself. He is a volunteer for STEM education program under the Hang Seng University Hong Kong (“HSUHK”) Greater Bay Area Innogration Hub.
CF [EMBA, CGMA, CA (Singapore)] is currently the Head of Finance for a Group of companies listed in HK and Singapore. CF is AICPA-CIMA North Asia advisory committee member.
CF had held senior positions in multinational, listed companies and worked in Big 4 international auditing firms.
CF’s over 20 years of extensive experience covers strategic planning, mergers & acquisition, treasury management, tax strategy. He is highly skilled in setting up / winding down operations & using the latest technology to implement automation.
CF holds an Executive MBA from Kellogg-HKUST and is a Bachelor (Hon) Accountancy graduate from Nanyang Technological University of Singapore.
Mr Sam Lee is an entrepreneur and a human resources professional since 1997. He is
currently very much involved in the startup scene in the surrounding regions and has co-founded Nanyang Angelz, a network of marketplace professionals/private investors, to provide angel funding/mentoring of founders for startups with a skew towards impacting the society and the environment. Nanyang Angelz organizes/co-host events regularly with wide-ranging from Blockchain Technologies to Human Capitals.
GENUS, a social enterprise that Sam co-founded, supports underprivileged children in Asia to learn English and life skills. GENUS currently supports over 300 children in 6 countries, with the mission to impact young lives with learning opportunities.
Sam Lee is also active in the human resources industries. He co-founded BankingTalents in Shanghai and Corban Group International in Hong Kong, providing executive searches for MNCs and SMEs alike. His work covers China, Hong Kong, and regional countries.
Sam other business ventures include Able Health (Traditional Chinese Medicine/Healthcare industry) - a member of the MiLOC Group.
Sam serves in ‘HIS Café’, part of the church’s hospitality ministry, and also as a member of the management board for Discovery Bay Alliance Church Community Centre. He is also an active member of Love.Together@DB, serving the community & residence in Discovery Bay in Lantau Island. He is also an avid mobile digital photographer.
Sam holds a Bachelor Degree in Engineering from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. His other professional qualifications are Grad. Dip. Marketing Management, Dip. HRD from SIM in Singapore, and is a Certified PDA Analyst (for Personality Profiling).