Food waste, aquaculture projects win “928 Challenge” startup competition

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Food waste, aquaculture projects win “928 Challenge” startup competition

11:55 CAT | 31 Oct 2022

Photo: Macau Business

A project to fight food waste from a team of young entrepreneurs from mainland China and an oxygen generator project for aquaculture of a group of students from the University of Shenzhen were distinguished with the top prizes in the second edition of the start-up competition “928 Challenge” held in Macau.

A total of 16 teams from China and Portuguese-speaking countries competed on Saturday in the final stage of the competition, which was divided into two categories: Universities and Startups.

In the Startups category, China’s OneDrop, with an application to prevent food waste already in operation, won first place, followed by two more Chinese ‘startups’: Ecomel Ecological & Technology and Reconnect Environmental Institute.

In the Universities category, the first place went to a team from the University of Shenzhen with an oxygen generator project for aquaculture.

A project by a team from the Eduardo Mondlane University, in Mozambique, to produce biogas from waste in poultry farms, reached the second place, while the Beijing Foreign Studies University secured the third place with a project on coffee culture for Timor-Leste.

“This second edition confirmed the enormous interest in the platform concept not only for the 1,250 participants and 256 teams, but also for the quality of the projects presented”, said the two co-founders and coordinators of the “928 Challenge” José Alves and Marco Rizzolio.

For José Alves, also dean of the Faculty of Business at City University of Macau (CityU), this initiative allows the transfer of Chinese technologies to Portuguese-speaking countries, in infrastructure, energy, telecommunications, agriculture, fisheries or food, much needed in these countries, and “many of the which exist in Macau, in companies that can organize and make these transfers”.

“We hope that the Macau Government and the business environment [of the territory] will continue to support this initiative that can bring added value projects to the Greater Bay Area and Portuguese-speaking countries,” he said.

At the opening of the awards ceremony, a video message from the Portuguese Secretary of State for Digitalization and Administrative Modernization, Mário Campolargo, was broadcast, in which he highlighted the existence of a common heritage between Macau and the Portuguese-speaking bloc that needs to be explored. most.

The two officials added that for the next year they will “rethink the format” of the initiative “to take advantage of the greater potential of teams and projects”, betting on greater dissemination in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macau Greater Bay and in the Portuguese-speaking bloc.

Meanwhile, the event will be renamed “929 Challenge” alluding to the nine mainland cities in the Greater Bay Area, the two Chinese special administrative regions (Macau and Hong Kong) and nine Portuguese-speaking countries, after Equatorial Guinea joined the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries and the Forum Macau.

Source: Lusa