HKSTP
6.11.2020 13:51:12 CET | Business Wire | Press release
Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) held its annual Elevator Pitch Competition 2020 (EPiC) virtually for the first time to unveil new and exciting pitching, investment and partnership opportunities as global startups face a challenging business landscape. US-based biotechnology startup, Mi Terro, topped other finalists to be crowned champion and claimed the top prize at the competition today.
HKSTP’s annual flagship event this year expanded to a week-long virtual programme. It garnered a great response with over 77,000 live views at today’s pitching competition. This year, EPiC attracted 476 entries from 37 countries and cities across five continents. A total of 170 contestants from 31 different markets entered the semi-final round, with nearly 70% of them coming from overseas.
Mi Terro, champion and winner of the Smart City category, is a company that upcycles and re-engineers protein food waste into plastic and cotton alternative fibres for the fashion, medical and packaging industries. The three Tech Category Winners, including UK-based AI & Robotics startup Arctoris, Philippines-based fintech startup PearlPay, and Portugal-based health technology startup RUBYnanomed, showcased their full potential as innovators in the competition.
Albert Wong, CEO of HKSTP, said: “This year’s successful staging of the 5th EPiC is a clear sign of our determination to provide a platform of unmatched opportunities to startups around the world to showcase their innovations and demonstrate their entrepreneurial spirit. The week-long programme is also a show of strength and resilience for Hong Kong’s rapidly-growing innovation and technology ecosystem which propels startups and their ideas to success in Hong Kong, Asia and beyond.”
Since inception in 2016, EPiC has drawn a huge number of international startups to make a live one-minute elevator pitch to leading investors and judges at the International Commerce Centre (ICC), the tallest skyscraper in Hong Kong. This year, our contestants switched modes to present their innovative business ideas, with a one-minute video pitch submitted to simulate the signature 60-second elevator ride.
The top ten finalists were given another opportunity to face the judges in a three-minute live pitch and two-minute Q&A, before announcing the overall champion, who took away a cash prize of US$100,000 while each of the category winners received a cash prize of US$10,000 and all ten finalists won US$6,000 each.
The competition marks a major progression for startups who gained valuable exposure among investors and industry leaders in their ongoing entrepreneurship journey. To further bolster the growth and development of local and overseas startups, this year’s EPiC provides a wider array of business opportunities to explore and acquire better understanding of the investment landscape in the region with the upcoming “Global Matching” programme from 9 to 12 November and the “Investment x Corporate Innovation Conference” on 13 November.
List of Winners
Award |
Company Name |
Market |
||
Champion and Tech Category Winner – Smart City |
United States |
|||
Tech Category Winner – Artificial Intelligence & Robotics |
United Kingdom |
|||
Tech Category Winner – FinTech |
Philippines |
|||
Tech Category Winner – Health Technology |
Portugal |
|||
Other Top 10 Finalists |
Australia |
|||
|
Hong Kong |
|||
|
United States |
|||
|
Hong Kong |
|||
|
Denmark |
|||
|
Hong Kong |
About Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation
Comprising Science Park, InnoCentre and Industrial Estates, Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) is a statutory body dedicated to building a vibrant innovation and technology ecosystem to connect stakeholders, nurture technology talents, facilitate collaboration, and catalyse innovations to deliver social and economic benefits to Hong Kong and the region.
Established in May 2001, HKSTP has been driving the development of Hong Kong into a regional hub for innovation and growth in several focused clusters including Electronics, Information & Communications Technology, Green Technology, Biomedical Technology, Materials and Precision Engineering. We enable science and technology companies to nurture ideas, innovate and grow, supported by our R&D facilities, infrastructure, and market-led laboratories and technical centres with professional support services. We also offer value added services and comprehensive incubation programmes for technology start-ups to accelerate their growth.
Technology businesses benefit from our specialised services and infrastructure at Science Park for applied research and product development; enterprises can find creative design support at InnoCentre; while skill-intensive businesses are served by our three industrial estates at Tai Po, Tseung Kwan O and Yuen Long. More information about HKSTP is available at www.hkstp.org .
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201106005290/en/
Link:
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Verimatrix ReAccess Earns Gold 2026 Merit Award for Telecom & Wireless2.3.2026 17:50:00 CET | Press release
Regulatory News: Verimatrix (Euronext Paris: VMX), a leading provider of security solutions for a safer connected world, today announced that its Verimatrix ReAccess solution was honored with a gold 2026 Merit Award for Telecom & Wireless. The industry accolade recognizes the company’s next-generation content security solution that modernizes legacy Conditional Access Systems (CAS) across DVB, IPTV and OTT networks without requiring costly hardware replacements or field service interventions. Judged by industry executives, media professionals and technology consultants, the Merit Awards evaluate submissions from across the telecommunications landscape. Verimatrix ReAccess enables secure, over-the-air (OTA) software updates to deployed set-top boxes (STBs), delivering operator cost savings, reduced operational complexity, and ongoing protection against piracy. It also empowers operators to continuously strengthen content security, eliminating the need for costly hardware replacements. U
Textron Aviation Launches Donation Campaign to Support 2026 Special Olympics Airlift; Continues Nationwide Call for Volunteer Doves2.3.2026 17:00:00 CET | Press release
Textron Aviation Inc., a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, today announced the launch of a donation campaign benefitting Special Olympics in support of the 2026 Special Olympics Airlift, a nationwide effort that brings athletes and coaches to the Special Olympics USA Games through the generosity of volunteer pilots, aircraft owners and operators known as Doves. Financial contributions go directly to the Special Olympics, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. New for the 2026 event, the donation campaign serves a vital role in ensuring each delegation has what it needs for a smooth and welcoming travel experience. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260302196418/en/ Textron Aviation launches donation campaign to support 2026 Special Olympics Airlift; continues nationwide call for volunteer Doves (Photo credit: Textron Aviation). “This campaign reflects the spirit of unity and generosity that defines the Special Olym
Forrester Announces The Agenda For Its 2026 CX Events To Help Address The Challenges AI Can’t Handle Alone2.3.2026 15:30:00 CET | Press release
The global event series will bring together customer experience, marketing, and digital business leaders at CX Forum East, CX Forum West, and CX Summit EMEA Forrester (Nasdaq: FORR) today announced the agenda for its global customer experience (CX) event series: CX Summit EMEA, being held in Amsterdam, June 8–10, 2026; CX Forum East, being held in New York City, June 16–17, 2026; and CX Forum West, being held in San Francisco, June 29–30, 2026. Today, CX, marketing, and digital business leaders are under mounting pressure to leverage AI to architect smarter end-to-end customer journeys, automate service, operationalize AI agents, and deliver true personalization at scale — all while consumer trust is at an all-time low. While AI is promising to raise the bar for speed and efficiency, beneath every customer experience is a foundation that AI alone can’t build. To forge trust, organizations need to embed human creativity, context, customer identity, and quality data into every customer i
Incode First to Achieve iBeta’s Highest Level of Independent Identity Security Testing on Both iOS and Android With 0% Error Rate2.3.2026 15:00:00 CET | Press release
Records 0% APCER and 0% BPCER under ISO/IEC 30107-3 Level 3 testing - delivered through a fully passive single-selfie experience Incode Technologies, Inc., the global leader in identity security and fraud prevention, today announced that iBeta PAD testing confirmed Incode’s face liveness technology achieves Level 3 Presentation Attack Detection (PAD) conformance under ISO/IEC 30107-3. "We are the first company to independently achieve iBeta Level 3 conformance on both iOS and Android – with zero errors and without adding friction to users," said Ricardo Amper, Founder & CEO at Incode. "That combination matters. It proves we can meet the highest bar for liveness assurance while keeping onboarding fast and easy, even in regulated and high-risk environments." Face liveness technology is used in digital onboarding and authentication to confirm a real, live person is present during a selfie capture – not a printed photo, video replay, mask, or other spoofing attempt. It enables organization
Safe Software Expands its FME Platform with MCP2.3.2026 15:00:00 CET | Press release
FME embraces MCP in two ways: connecting to more systems than ever, while bringing the power of AI to its entire data ecosystem Today, Safe Software (Safe), the creator of FME, the only All-Data, Any-AI enterprise integration platform with true support for spatial data, announced that Model Context Protocol (MCP) capabilities are coming soon to its FME Platform. This update expands what organizations can do with their existing data and workflows. As organizations move AI from experimentation to production they face growing challenges around context management, interoperability, and security. MCP provides a standardized way for AI, agents and other systems to interact with external systems, such as databases, internal tools, and APIs, without hard-coding integrations. “Adding MCP to the FME Platform is an important step in our All-Data, Any-AI mission,” said Don Murray, CEO of Safe Software. “With MCP, our customers can adopt new AI models without rebuilding integrations. By extending F
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom