Alpha Innovation Contest 2018 – Review

Alpha Incubation Group (AIG) successfully organized Alpha Innovation Contest 2018, its inaugural event and in line with its stated mission:

To continue its mission to the wide community, Alpha Incubation Group is pleased to announce the commencement of preparations for Alpha Innovation Contest 2019 to be held from July to September 2019.

Before the opening of the new contest, we would like to review with all our friends the Alpha Innovation Contest 2018.

Alpha Incubation Group (AIG) and AEMS have initiated the contest with a theme of “Australian Focused, Innovation and Self Realization” to encourage young people’s innovation and entrepreneurship, provide a platform for young people to present their innovative ideas and projects, discover local pre-eminent people and projects, support young entrepreneurs via an incubation system with experienced mentors from various industries & sectors to help them bring their innovations to fruition and provide entrepreneurs with opportunities of further development and commercialization.

The initiative of Alpha Innovation Contest is to help university graduates (both undergraduates and post graduates) and young researchers, early stage small business or startups to get out from the below issues:

For Small Business and/or Startups,

–Frustration of business management process

–Bottleneck of business development due to shortage of money for initial operation stage, lack of technique innovation, etc.

–Lack of channels to seek authority or community support

For University Graduates, these issues are:

–University students or researcher desire to build up working experiences or realise their innovative ideas by participating new technology business or projects rather than working for restaurant or other low-profile manufacturing industries.

–Post Graduate have difficult to start up or run business due to lack of money, network and community assistances.

Please refer to the below table for the milestones of Alpha Innovation Contest 2018.

On 27 March, 2018， the Alpha Innovation Contest 2018 was announced via the Alpha Incubation Group (AIG) WeChat Moment, AIG’s Facebook and linkedin. The news of the contest was also simultaneously published by the Australian Chinese Times and other media in Perth.

Alpha Innovation Contest 2018, with the theme of “Australian Focused, Innovation and self-realization” has been heavily promoted by the local media in WA, including Australian Chinese Times, Oriental Post, Most WA, China Net and other social media, it was aroused great repercussion among the local business communities and the four major universities in Perth. As soon as the registration for the contest opened for registration, many individual entrepreneurs, small businesses and university students have registered their projects online or via e-mails, followed by telephone enquiries.

As of 16th April, the Contest Organizing Committee had received 20 entries for the contest. The project industries cover new medical device development, online education platform, integrating VR and AI technologies, catering management software, new agricultural technologies, medical care, tourism and more.

More importantly, the contest was not only supported by the four universities in Western Australia, but also supported by the state government. In particular, the Deputy Director General of the Department of Employment, Tourism, Science and Innovation of Western Australia, Mr. Rob Delane has agreed to join the competition advisory committee, he has participated most of the prior-contest activities, including contest launch ceremony with a very supportive and encouraging speech.

At the same time, Alpha Incubation Group has reached framework agreements for cooperation with SinoSteel WA office and SinoSteel Spark Innovation Works in Tianjin, who have committed to the joint development and incubation support of quality projects in both China and Australia. Similar partners include Suzhou, Wuhan and Shenzhen who have shown great interest is working with AIG

On 20th April, 2018, Alpha Incubation Group and Australian Education and Immigration Services held the media release for the launch of the Alpha Innovation Contest at the Northbridge Hotel in Perth. Over 100 people attended the event, including the Business Concil of the Chinese Consulate in Perth, representatives of the state government, senior contest panel

The Contest Committee Member list and the Contest Schedule were released at the conference.

The launching ceremony started with the key note speech by VIPs, including Mr Rob Delane, Deputy Director General (International Education, Trade and Investment) at Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation),Consul Wei Liang (The Economic and Commercial Section of the Consulate- General of the People’s Republic of China in Perth), who have acknowledged the promising prospect of AIG’s incubation services initiated by the coming Innovation Contest. Other guest speakers, such as Contest lawyer, representatives from Contest Advisory Panel and Mentor Team also provided witnessing speech and contest process briefing.

After the Contest launching ceremony, the Contest Committee organized 3 contest briefing sessions in UWA, ECU and Murdoch accompanied by contest advertisements via various medias. The 3 sessions had received more than 200 audiences including university students, graduates, and startups. Some members from Contest Advisory Panel presented these sessions to answer any queries from the audiences.

The Alpha Incubation Group successfully held a Special Theme Seminar on the Alpha Innovation Contest, hosted by the WA Chinese Chamber of Commerce, where peoples from the Northern hemisphere mixed cheerfully with their Southern hemisphere hosts.

Many distinguished guests had attended the seminar, including Hon Pierre Yang (Member for South Metro Region Legislative Council, Parliament of Western Australia), Rob Delane, (Deputy Director General, International Education, Trade and Investment, Dept. of Jobs, Tourism, Science & Innovation, Government of WA), Michael Faulkner (Director of the International Economic Development Department, Joondalup Municipal Government). Other participants, including professors from the major universities of WA, elites from business and investment industries, entrants who had signed up for the Alpha Innovation Contest also attended the seminar. Nearly 100 seats in the Conference Hall were packed, and some audience could have to stand to observe this entrepreneurial feast.

The second section of the seminar was the presentation of the certificate of appointments by Dr. Tim Song, CEO of Alpha Incubation Group, for the Alpha Contest Mentor and Judging Panel, the Contest Advisory Panel and Advisory Committee Members of Alpha Incubation Group. The panel members included senior government officials, university professors, industry elites, investors and partners. Dr Song warmly thanked everyone for their continuous support for the Alpha Innovation Contest and Alpha Incubation Group.

On the closing date of the Alpha Innovation Contest entry registration on 18th May, we had received a total of more than 40 projects, team or individual start-ups from Perth, Singapore, Malaysia, China, and Hong Kong.

On 29th June, Contest Committee scheduled a Contest Induction for all contestants. This is the first and only training session before the contest. It should help the contestants warm up and prepare a wonderful presentation at the contest, which will attract the attention and favor of the judges and investment advisory committee. The induction speakers are well travelled and experiences professions, who are also mentors of AIG.

At the induction, some contestants brought with them pre-prepared questions to the induction, they listened attentively to the three mentor speakers to explain the pre-contest notes and how to present their respective projects and other matters related to the contest. The contestants scrambled to ask questions, and the speakers answered them one by one patiently. At the end of the event, the participants believed the induction session was very informative and they were full of confidence and ready for the contest.

Due to the value of induction contents, there were also non-contestant audiences presented the induction to gain some helpful knowledge for their entrepreneurship.

After nearly five months of preparation, from the first registration to the initial short listing of the submitted projects, followed by the contestants induction training and re-submission of contest presentation, there were 19 teams admitted to enter the first round contest.

On the 10th and August 13th 2018, two sessions of first round contest were held at the University of Western Australia and the Curtin University Business School. The members of all 19 teams strived to present their projects with their talents and made every effort to win the entry for the final round of Alpha Innovation Contest.

After the two sessions completed, the Contest Committee finalized the list of the final project teams for the Final Contest based on the score summary of the judges as well as their evaluation comments. Since the comprehensive evaluation of the business model of two projects were very close, the Contest Committee decided to give one more place for entering the final round contest, i.e. 7 teams’ accepted in total.

On August 17th, the final contest and closing ceremony of Alpha Innovation Contest 2018 was held at Edith Cowan University of Australia. Initiated and organized by AEMS – Australia Education and Migration Services and Alpha Incubation Group, the inaugural Alpha Innovation Contest 2018, with the theme of Australia Focused, Innovation and Self Realisation in April 2018, now ended successfully.

At the end of the final contest, the T.A.P (The Alpha Program) a brand entrepreneurship support packaged program as the Alpha Incubation Process, officially set sail. At the same time, the AuSino Technology and Innovation Centre, jointly established by the SinoSteel Australia Pty Ltd., Alpha Incubation Group, Sinosteel Metal & Resources Co., Ltd. and Sinosteel Technology Incubator (Tianjin) Company Ltd. A new chapter of promoting innovation and new industry cooperation between China and Australia had begun.

After the closing ceremony, another important event was the launching ceremony of the Au-Sino Technology & Innovation Centre.

The Au-Sino Technology & Innovation Centre was jointly established by Sinosteel Australia Co., Ltd., Australia Alpha Incubation Group, Sinosteel Metal Resources Co., Ltd. and Sinosteel Technology Incubator (Tianjin) Co., Ltd., aiming to bridge between Australia and China, to promote high-quality scientific research projects and develop strategies of Sinosteel’s overseas expansion of technology innovation business, and meet the need of Alpha Incubation Group to promote Australian quality innovation projects to China.

At the launching ceremony, Mr. David Sun, the general manager of Sinosteel Australia, gave a warm speech. After congratulating the success of the Alpha Innovation Contest, Mr. Sun briefly introduced and summarized the development of Sinosteel’s technology innovation business in China and Australia in recent years. He hoped and believed that through the establishment of this center, the development of Sinosteel’s technology and innovation business sector will take a more solid and stable step in the internationalization strategy.

Soon after the closing ceremony of the “Alpha Innovation Contest 2018”, Dr. Tim Song Tingguang, President of Alpha Incubation Group, personally led a “Australian Technology Enterprise Delegation” to China, members of the delegation include professor from University and the Alpha Innovation Contest winning teams. The delegation left Perth on 25 August and travel to Dongguan, Henan and Tianjin for one week of business investment negotiations and project roadshows.

The projects promotion and roadshow activities in China were a complete success, except for the ECU University project “Composite RF/Optical Coherence Tomography Catheter – for Effective Atrial Ablation Monitoring”, which won the 3rd prize of “Yujiapu International Youth Double Innovation”. Another color solar PV panel project had also received an investment intention of up to 100 million RMB (~$20million) in the business meeting at Zhengzhou with manufacturing facility site recommended locally.

Admitted incubating projects/business at Kewdale Incubation Centre of Alpha Incubation Group