May 24 to 26, 2019, the Hult Prize Greater Bay Area Innovation Challenge 2019 was held in Shenzhen. A GTIIT student team consisting of Wang Xinyao, Yang Feng, Wang Yuxin and Zhang Yujie, all from Chemical Engineering won the champion after a bitter fight. Including the champion team, eight GTIIT students entered the finals and two teams won the social media award.

Champion (Team "Star" )

GTIIT participants：Zhang Yujie, Wang Xinyao, Wang Yuxin, Yang Feng * Front Row (Left to Right)

The Hult Prize is the world's biggest engine for the launch of for good, for-profit startups emerging from universities around the world. During the competition, challengers were invited to share their entrepreneurial ideas under the theme of "Intergenerational Harmony, Economic Empowerment, Barrier-free Accessibility" at the beginning. Later, they built their own teams based on interests and majors to make practical business plans through panel discussion, lectures and innovation workshops.

A total of 240 outstanding students from 25 universities from the Greater Bay Area attended this event. The participating universities included the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the City University of Hong Kong, the University of Macau, the Macau University of Science and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, South China Agricultural University, South China Normal University, South China University of Technology, Jinan University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), Shenzhen University, Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Southern University of Science and Technology, Guangdong Technion Israel Institute of Technology, etc.

During the competition, 17 GTIIT students competed with over 200 students from the Greater Bay Area. 8 of whom, from 3 teams proceeded to the finals (Top 8). One team won the champion, and two teams won the social media awards.

The Finalists & Social Media Awarder (Team "Pill Pal")

GTIIT participants: Yang Yifan（Left One）Li Jiayu（Right Two）Cai Yixian（Right One）

The Finalists (Team "Back to Future" )

GTIIT participants：Qiu Kehan (Right One)

Social Media Awarder (Team "F&C")

GTIIT participants: Huo Zhenting (Left Two) Zhang Wanting(Right One)

Aiming at tackling the issue of lack of participation in extracurricular activities among immigrant children due to poor economic conditions, lack of company, and parents' low literacy, the team "Star" innovatively created a platform to combine the needs of immigrant children and the well-educated but empty-nest elderly, encouraging the empty-nesters to take care of the children thus to live a more meaningful life.  At the same time, immigrant children can have access to more extracurricular activities.

With the purpose of enhancing intergenerational communication, the team "Back to Future" creatively put forward a model, which will design an interesting mini program in WeChat thus to spread popular culture knowledge under the theme of "Intergenerational Harmony".

In addition to the 10,000 RMB award, the students from champion team also get an opportunity to study in Shenzhen in the coming summer vacation.

Text by GTIIT News & Public Affairs

Photos from participants of the Innovation Challenge