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The HKUST-SINO One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition and Impactathon take different approaches to helping promising ideas move from early concepts to practical applications in businesses and communities.
Across these initiatives, Sino aims to connect innovators with communities, universities and businesses at critical stages when feedback, practical experience and industry connections can help their ideas gain momentum.
Supporting ideas at an earlier stage
Launched in 2011, the HKUST-SINO One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition gives aspiring entrepreneurs access to training, mentorship, investors and industry contacts as they develop technologies and business models.
Support after the competition continues through HKUST InnoBay 1M PLUS, which gives promising teams access to real-world application scenarios, industry networking, partnership matching and proof-of-concept opportunities as they progress from technology validation towards market adoption. Smart City will be its first theme.
According to David Ng, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Sino Group, this initiative seeks to connect young ventures with partners across government, industry, academia and the community, as well as businesses and investors that can help promising ideas progress towards application.
“Through the HKUST InnoBay 1M PLUS programme, we hope to connect promising teams with start-ups, industry partners and investors, opening up more opportunities for collaboration, application and commercialisation,” he said.
Partners include Samsung Electronics, Cyberport, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation and the Smart City Consortium. Companies from the competition’s mainland regional contests will also gain access to Hong Kong’s industry, investment and business networks.
The finalists this year showed why young companies can require different kinds of support.
Refined Motor Company, which won the Platinum Award in the HKUST Track, has developed proprietary modular powertrains for converting existing petrol and diesel vehicles to electric power. Its solution is Hong Kong’s only approved EV conversion technology, allowing existing vehicles to be retained rather than scrapped.
Singapore-based Waveity is at another different stage of development. The International Student Track Silver winner has developed a manta ray-inspired offshore system that uses floating modules to generate electricity from wave motion.
For Waveity, the immediate challenge is putting the technology into a full-scale operating environment.
“Our first priority is full-scale deployment because we still need to validate the idea under real-world conditions,” the team said after the competition. “After that, we can potentially look at Hong Kong infrastructure and try to implement the technology here.”
Prof Carrie Ling, Director of the HKUST Entrepreneurship Centre, said early-stage companies often need time to establish customers, refine products and produce evidence that investors can assess.
Her advice is to engage potential users early. “Try early and talk to the customers early. You need to understand the market first and then work out what solution is needed,” she said.
Learning from real users
The need for support does not end once a technology leaves the university or competition setting. The next challenge is often seeing whether it works for the people it was designed to serve.
Impactathon addresses that stage by matching start-ups with community organisations in the Northern Metropolis, enabling them to test their solutions with residents and refine them through direct feedback.
More than 50 partners participated in the five-month programme, including the Northern Metropolis Co-ordination Office (NMCO), Social Ventures Hong Kong (SVhk), over 10 start-ups and six local universities. More than 1,000 residents and stakeholders were engaged, while seven community partners helped identify local needs before start-ups worked directly with the people their technologies were intended to serve.
Hong Kong healthtech start-up GOFA had developed a solution using AI to screen older people for fall risk and provide exercise training, intervention and ongoing monitoring. What the team had lacked was direct access to its intended users.
Through Impactathon, GOFA was paired with the Chinese YMCA of Hong Kong and invited 28 older people to try its solution.
Their experience prompted changes to the product. Text was enlarged, animations were simplified and access to exercise instructions was made easier. After the adjustments, the proportion of participants able to complete training independently at home rose from about half to around 90 per cent.
.jpg "Refined Motor Company showcases its modular EV conversion technology, enabling existing petrol and diesel vehicles to be converted to electric power, after winning the Platinum Award in the HKUST Track.")
The team also added a check-in function to encourage older people to walk outside and interact more with their communities. The developers added new features after seeing how older people actually used the AI assessment tool.
After refining the solution through the community trial, GOFA received both the Grand Prize and Most Innovative Award at Impactathon.
For start-ups such as GOFA, direct user feedback can reveal design and usability issues that are difficult to identify during development alone.
Melanie Kwok, Deputy General Manager for Sustainability and Innovation at Sino Group, said: “What is most important is that the business sector can provide an application setting.” She added that feedback gathered from operating properties or customers can help start-ups refine their products, while industry connections may open doors to more opportunities.
Beyond community-based trials, Sino’s property portfolio has also served as a testing ground for emerging technologies, while Sino Inno Lab provides a platform for proof-of-concept development and pilot projects.
Established in 2018, Sino Inno Lab has engaged more than 800 innovators and supported more than 140 technology solutions.
As a start-up matures, it may need university guidance, industry contacts, community trials and investment at different stages. Access to these networks, user feedback and real-world testing can help promising technologies progress towards wider adoption.
Through the HKUST-SINO One Million Dollar Entrepreneurship Competition and Impactathon, young ventures are given opportunities to take these next steps towards practical application.
