2019 Overseas Talent Entrepreneurship Conference Attracts 4000 Projects Worldwide

On July 26, the global finals of the entrepreneurship competition at the 2019 Overseas Talent Entrepreneurship Conference (OTEC) were held in Chaoyang District, Beijing. After over three months of fierce competition among 800 innovation projects worldwide, 23 projects made it to the finals. Wandelbots, the industrial robot project from Berlin, won the championship, and medical project AINOSTIS from London won second place. Third place went to Chinese project Qury, an AI-based cross-app search engine.

OTEC has been aiming to provide a comprehensive service platform for overseas talents returning to China or those coming all the way to China to start a business. Ever since April, the organizers have hosted 17 rounds of overseas competitions in Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel, Australia as well as other countries and regions. Six competitions have been held in China, featuring more than 800 registered projects. This year, the “Belt and Road” Southeast Asia Division was established for the first time, with the main venue for the finals set in Kunming. Outstanding projects presented in Kunming come from the “Belt and Road” capitals including Tel Aviv, Manila, Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur.

As a whole, OTEC has attracted over 20,000 entrepreneurs, 4,000 projects and more than 100 venture capital leaders from more than 20 countries and regions including the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel. More than 400 projects have secured investment through the OTEC, and 200 projects have been implemented in Beijing and other cities globally.

This year’s OTEC Entrepreneurship Competition has strengthened support for key industries. The competition divided the projects into eight different categories including intelligent manufacturing and Internet of Things, AI and big data, medical and healthcare technology, financial technology, education and entertainment, green technology, service and consumption upgrades as well as information & security. The organizer invited three to five investment institutions and major enterprises for each category to facilitate interactions between projects and potential investors.

For the most promising projects taking part in the competition, those that are in line with the funding standards of the “Phoenix Plan” for start-ups, can obtain up to 100,000 yuan of venture capital support. At the same time, the projects can enjoy one-stop consulting services such as free company registration, free incubation, green channel registration, visa, talent and industrial policy consultation, and face to face introductions with venture capital firms.