The 2017 "Lanbei Maker Plan" IAEC International Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition Finals, jointly organized by Shandong University and Qingdao Municipal Government, was held on September 25 in Pangu Maker Space, Qingdao High-Tech Zone.

The competition covers high-tech areas such as software information, medicine and medical treatment, intelligent manufacturing and new materials, and the Internet. It is known that in addition to the selection of prize winners, the competition is also combined with the "Golden Apple", "Red Apple" and "Green Apple" program of the Qingdao High-Tech Zone. It would respectively give fund support to mature, developing and start-up projects and each type of award-winning projects can get bonus of 500,000, 300,000 and 100,000 yuan at most. All the award-winning projects can be landed in the Sino-US Science and Technology Innovation International Industrial Park jointly built by Shandong University and Qingdao High-Tech Zone, with access to free office space, international entrepreneurship landing coaching, tutor guidance of "industry + finance" dual entrepreneurship, first investment of 2 billion special venture capital fund and talent apartments.

Finally, the finals selected 16 award-winning projects, of which Robotpen and Designup won the first prize, another five the second prize, and nine the third prize. Two of the award-winning projects were selected into the "Golden Apple" program for investigation, three "Red Apple", and 11 "Green Apple".

The competition spanned three continents, with four international preliminary contests held in the United States, Canada and France, and three national preliminary contests in Jinan, Shanghai and Qingdao. Projects collection started in May with more than 200 projects participating in. Finally 64 teams from around the world were select into the finals.

This competition is an international innovation and entrepreneurship competition co-organized by Shandong University and Qingdao Municipal Government for the second time after the Sino-US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition in the last year, and it was also an important part of Innovating China Qingdao Station.

The competition aims to speed up and promote the cooperation between the organizers and the global scientific and technological innovation incubator, venture capital firms and research institutes, improve the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, and attract international leading innovative technologies, projects and innovation teams to settle down in Qingdao and Shandong University, so that domestic and foreign scientific research, talents, social capital and the market can achieve deep integration.

In recent years, Shandong University has comprehensively deepened innovation and entrepreneurship education and practical reform, and built open, three-dimensional, eco-innovation and entrepreneurship collaborative education system. It focuses on the close integration of scientific research and innovation, technology transfer and transformation landing. Shandong University has built a number of sharing platforms for innovation and cooperation platforms of schools, governments and enterprises, including Shandong Industrial Technology Research Institute, Qilu Software Park Practice Base, Shandong University Sino-US Science and Technology Innovation International Industrial Park, and 2025 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alliance.

From the preparation of the Sino-US University International Science and Technology Innovation Park in 2015, organization of the Sino-US Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition and the Sino-US Maker Forum in 2016, joint construction of the International Innovation and Transformation Institute with the University of Cambridge in February 2017 to the subsequent international innovation transformation and industrial upgrading forum, a number of high-end international cooperation platforms built by Shandong University have become a national lightspot in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Source: the Sino-US University International Science and Technology Innovation Park

Edited by: Xie Tingting