Global internet competition to debut at World Internet Conference in Wuzhen

Officials from the Economy and Information Technology Department in Zhejiang give a briefing on the Global Internet Competition of "Straight to Wuzhen" on Oct 10. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Global Internet Competition of "Straight to Wuzhen" is scheduled to make its debut at the sixth World Internet Conference on Oct 22 in Wuzhen, a river town in Tongxiang, Jiaxing city, East China's Zhejiang province, according to a briefing held on Oct 10.

Initiated in April this year, the competition attracted more than 400 entrepreneurial teams from around the world with their projects involving big data, the internet of things, artificial intelligence and intelligent manufacturing.

The organizers said that 34 projects have stood out for the event's semifinals, of which nine were from the Asia Pacific region, European and American countries.

The shortlisted projects will fight for the 10 spots in the final, to be held on Oct 19.

Serving as judges are seven experts from IDG Capital, Sequoia Capital, Softbank China Venture Capital, Alibaba Group, and other leading investment firms and companies.

The organizers said that 12 other activities will be held during the competition, including a Digital Economy Industry Cooperation Conference, a capital matchmaking activity and 10 project matchmaking activities.

By exploring new technologies, new models and new formats of the internet, the competition is an important platform for cooperation in projects, technologies and investment between Chinese and global companies, according to the organizers.

Jiaxing and Tongxiang, a county-level city in Jiaxing, offer a reward of up to 10 million yuan ($1.4 million) to award-winning projects each year which decide to settle down in the places, and other places in Zhejiang also plan to roll out preferential policies for such projects.