The preliminary contest of the Yantian District division of the 11th China (Shenzhen) Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition officially kicked off June 5 at the Yantian District Administrative Center. The launch ceremony was attended by Luo Yi, deputy head of Yantian District Government and Yan Li, director of the Technology Transfer Center of the Science, Technology and Innovation Commission of Shenzhen Municipality. The event was jointly hosted by the Science, Technology and Innovation Commission of Shenzhen Municipality and Yantian District People’s Government.

This edition of the Yantian preliminary covers two categories, namely, bio-medicine and artificial intelligence (AI). Hu Chanjuan, general manager of Shenzhen Health Intelligent Valley, estimated that this year’s competition will attract 180 projects, an increase of 59.4 percent over the previous year.

Sheng Yuhui, a founding partner of Cocospace, a co-sponsor of the competition, said Cocospace will make every effort to support the competition and recommend quality AI projects to compete in city-level or even national-level competitions.

Luo said Yantian will take the initiative to develop bio-medicine and AI industries and will implement an incentive system in an effort to lure more projects to Yantian. He also mentioned that organizing such competitions makes Yantian more vibrant and will stimulate the potential and enthusiasm of entrepreneurs for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Thanks to the great support from the Yantian District government and relevant organizations, the competition last year saw excellent results with 66 percent of the projects entering the finals at the city-level competition, ranking Yantian first among all the districts.