Mozambique UEM team wins second place in ‘928 Challenge’ Universities category in Macau

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique UEM team wins second place in ‘928 Challenge’ Universities category in Macau

6:01 CAT | 31 Oct 2022

The final of 928 Challenge at World Trade Center Macau . [Photo courtesy: 928 Challenge]

A project to produce biogas from waste in poultry farms put forward by a team from the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique (UEM) won second place in the ‘928 Challenge’ competition in Macau last Friday.

In all, 16 finalist teams, ten of which were Chinese, divided into two categories, universities and Start-ups, competed in the final of the second edition of this Sino-Lusophone competition.

First place went to the University of Shenzhen, a Chinese city adjacent to Hong Kong, with an oxygen generator project for aquaculture, while third went to the University of Foreign Studies of Beijing, whose team presented a training plan for coffee culture in Timor-Leste, aimed mainly at women.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 928 Challenge (@928challenge)

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

“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, both from the City University of Macau (CityU).

For José Alves, dean of the Faculty of Business at 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 organise and make these transfers”.

“We hope that the Macau Government and the business environment [of the territory] will continue to support this initiative, Which 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 deserves to be explored.

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

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

The competition is jointly organised by the Forum for Economic and Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese-Speaking Countries (Forum Macao) and several universities in Macau and the Greater Bay area, plus the State University of Rio de Janeiro.

First place winners received prizes of 20,000 patacas (€2,480), the second places received 10,000 (€1,240) and the thirds, 5,000 (€620).

Source: Lusa