City University of Macau’s Dean of the Faculty of Business and 928 Challenge Competition co-founder Prof. José Alves told The Macau Post Daily that there are expectations for the number of contestants to double to around 1,600 students and 300 teams for the competition’s second edition.
Alves made the remarks yesterday after a press conference held that on the Forum Macao premises at FIT in Avenida Comercial de Macau to announce the competition details.
The competition’s name is derived from the nine cities in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), two special administrative regions (SARs) of Hong Kong and Macau and eight Portuguese-speaking Countries (PSCs). It aims to establish relationships between China and the Portuguese-speaking countries through sustainability-orientated businesses.
The second edition is set to include two tracks: one for universities and another for startups. The participating teams will take part in a two-week online boot camp to gain a better understanding of the business environment and opportunities in the places involved.
Remarking on how the competition continues to connect China and the Portuguese-speaking countries, Alves told The Macau Post Daily that the requirement for all ideas is that businesses must “make the connection between China and one of the other Portuguese countries”, adding that this could enable the contestants to think about aspects such as investment and suppliers. He pointed out that for teams to do this with relative success, they must study the market, culture and policies of the other market.
Moreover, Alves commented that the competition stimulates innovation by enabling the contestants to first think about the different markets, and then about how a business can be created in a new market, while also providing the teams with “tools to build a business model and how to communicate it to investors”.
Alves underlined that the coordinators think that the competition is amongst the most interesting experiences for students studying Business, pointing out that only studying is “not enough to come up with successful ideas”, noting that diverse teams with different backgrounds such as science and technology combined with business are needed. “In our particular competition, we also encourage them to think about international markets, so this is very important to bring an idea from one market to another market or a technology from one market to another”, Alves added.
The competition is organised by Forum Macao in conjunction with various universities in Macau, the GBA and Rio de Janeiro State University. It is also sponsored by various entities such as Alibaba Cloud, BNU Macau and Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG).
Registration can be done at www.928challenge.org from next week until September 30.
Participants and speakers, including City University of Macau Professor, Dean of Faculty of Business and competition co-founder Jose Alves (seated, second from right), pose during yesterday’s press conference. Photo: Rui Pastorin
