PolyU International Future Challenge draws over 700 startup teams worldwide; Hong Kong Main Track announces top winners in Open and Student Tracks

The PolyU International Future Challenge, the flagship innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) competition of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), has attracted more than 700 outstanding teams worldwide to compete for cash prizes totalling over HK$2 million. The final of the PolyU × Waterdrop International Future Challenge (Hong Kong region) was held on the PolyU campus yesterday (9 September 2025). The top teams will advance to the Grand Final this December, where they will compete against the winning teams from six other regions.

The PolyU × Waterdrop International Future Challenge (Hong Kong region) is sponsored by the Waterdrop Inc., Huawei Cloud Hong Kong, and the PolyU Faculty of Health and Social Science, with support from Cathay Pacific, Nike and NTT. The competition, comprising Open and Student Tracks, attracted around 200 teams. After a rigorous selection process, around 30 outstanding teams advanced to today’s Final, where they competed for a range of awards and cash prizes in an elevator pitch format. The top four teams in the Student Track, selected through a stringent judging process, will advance to the Grand Final, joining the champions and merit award winners from each domain in the Open Track.

The Waterdrop Cup (Champion) was awarded to Harmonex Limited from the Open Track for their project “AIRmotion”. The Student Track champion was Renew Biotechnology Limited, recognised for their project “Sprayable Biomimetic Double Mask for Anti-scar Wound Healing”. The two winning teams received cash prizes of HK$150,000 and HK$30,000 respectively.

The Open Track in Hong Kong focuses on five core domains: cargo and travel, finance and insurance, health, information and communications technology, and sports. It aims to gather revolutionary solutions for these industries. To cultivate an I&E culture and ignite young students’ entrepreneurial passion, the Challenge features a dedicated Student Track. The participating teams were invited to join the PolyU Entrepreneurship Nurturing Series, which offered a range of training sessions covering topics from developing an entrepreneurial mindset and generating ideas to business model creation and pitching skills. The shortlisted teams were also invited to participate in exploratory tours to Vietnam, Singapore, Shanghai, the Greater Bay Area, and the Yangtze River Delta region, where they gained insights into innovation ecosystems in diverse regional markets, expanded their global perspectives, as well as explored collaboration and market opportunities, paving the way for future entrepreneurial developments.

Prof. Christopher CHAO, PolyU Vice President (Research and Innovation) congratulated the winning teams, wished them even greater success on their I&E journeys, and emphasised: “Striving to be an innovative world-class university, PolyU actively nurtures a new generation of entrepreneurs, advances the translation of research outcomes into real-world applications, and is committed to strengthening the I&T ecosystems of Hong Kong and multiple Mainland cities through the PolyVentures ecosystem and its MTRIs. The PolyU International Future Challenge is much more than a competition—it is a dynamic platform that integrates education, research translation, incubation and investment. It provides a stage for the aspiring entrepreneurs among our students, faculty members, alumni and the community at large to fully leverage their strengths, turning ideation and cutting-edge research into applications that benefit society.

In his keynote speech, Dr SHEN Peng—Founder, Chairman and CEO of Waterdrop Inc., a judge for the competition and a recipient of the 2024 Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award—said: “It is an honour, as an alumnus, to support my alma mater’s flagship I&E competition, share my entrepreneurial journey with young entrepreneurs, inspire aspiring entrepreneurs and help broaden their horizons. My time at PolyU laid a solid foundation for my entrepreneurial path and, more importantly, taught me that as we grow our businesses we must also give back to society and uphold corporate social responsibility.”

The award-winning startups/projects of the PolyU × Waterdrop International Future Challenge (Hong Kong region) are as follows:

Open Track

Student Track

*Teams advancing to the Grand Final

The PolyU International Future Challenge adopts a unique “1+N” framework, where “1” denotes the Hong Kong main track and “N” comprises multiple regional tracks across Mainland cities and regions, including Huizhou, Wenzhou, Qianhai (Shenzhen), Shanghai, Nanjing, and Jinjiang. All tracks are open to startup teams and innovators from around the world. PolyU partners with leading enterprises in each competition region and with its MTRIs to offer participating and award-winning teams the necessary support and guidance, including visits to Mainland cities and PolyU MTRIs, corporate visits, business and technical consulting services, and overseas trips. Please click here to visit the webpage for further details.

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