The Canadian branch of the China (Shenzhen) Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, an event aiming to help foreign innovation and entrepreneurship projects connect with China, will return to Toronto on March 23.
This is Toronto’s third year hosting the competition. The Sci Innovation Competition invites promising tech ventures to a pitch competition that will select 20 companies to represent Canada at the China Shenzhen Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition (IEIC) in April 2019. The ten finalists from the Sci Toronto competition will be awarded cash prizes of up to $20,000 CAD each, plus an expense-paid trip to compete at what has been called “The International Olympics of Entrepreneurship.”
The Canadian branch of what has been dubbed the “Global Olympics of Innovation” will feature 20 finalists that have been selected through regional competitions in Toronto, Waterloo, Ottawa, and Montreal. Each competitor will pitch their projects to a panel of expert judges for a chance to win prizes from a pool of $2.09 million CAD.
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The IEIC aims to integrate innovation and entrepreneurship resources and help foreign innovation and entrepreneurship projects connect with Chinese high tech industrial resources and expand the Chinese market.
This year’s competition features:
Genecis Bioindustries – Developing a SynBio platform to create bacteria that take in low-value organic waste and produce high-value chemicals. The first product line is biodegradable PHA bioplastics.
ViWiSTAR Technology – A Camera-based Real-Time Intelligent Driver Safety System in order to reduce the increasing traffic accident rate, this project provides a comprehensive in-vehicle driver safety system (DSS) taking care of driver safety assurance, security demand, driving assistance, and driver-vehicle interaction.
INViCARE – A nanotechnology company bringing innovative and impactful biomaterials to the healthcare industry. It has successfully developed the first inorganic two-dimensional nanocrystalline biomaterials with proven implant disinfection and bone healing properties.
Autonom – Provides solution for telecommunications companies to power 5G equipment during power outages. Autonom frees up space within operators’ cellular sites by providing battery backup solutions that are half the size of conventional solutions, thus saving cellular operators money rolling out 5G.
Initiated by the Municipality of Shenzhen, the competition is being hosted by local governments in Toronto, Silicon Valley, Sydney, Tokyo, Boston, Tel Aviv, London, Stockholm, and Berlin. On top of $2.09 million in prizes, the competition will offer a venture capital pool of $4 billion by 34 investment institutions for all the nine divisions, to help support the remaining projects.
Learn more about the competition here.
Image courtesy Sci Innovation Twitter