Business students win top awards in national entrepreneurship contest

 

Three teams of students from the College of Business at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) have won Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards in the Chuang Qing Chun National Entrepreneurship Competition.

 

The biennial competition attracted around 110,000 projects from more than 2,200 higher education institutions across the country this year. They entered three categories: Start-up Business Plan, Social Enterprise, and Entrepreneurial Practice. CityU’s three teams outperformed 399 projects from 220 higher education institutions in the final held in Chengdu.

 

The team that won the Gold Award in the category of Social Enterprise comprised Eli Chan Yin-lam and Cherissa Hung Sze-ying, Year 3 students from the Department of Accountancy, Thadine Ng Wing-yin, Year 3 student from the Department of Information Systems, and Lisa Yeung Hoi-ying, Year 3 student from the Department of Economics and Finance. Their winning project “Nanbor” was an assignment for their minor programme Social Entrepreneurship. Their instructor had encouraged them to enter the competition.

 

Their project was inspired by their observations that many parents in society today have to work and have less time to take care of their children, while many retired people have relatively much more free time. Thus, they wanted to develop an app that provides a babysitting service platform for working parents and retirees so that they can both enjoy economic benefits.

 

Lisa Yeung said they hoped to receive start-up funds so that they could work with the CityU Apps Lab to develop and manage a system and launch it on the market.

 

To boost parents’ confidence in their app, they hope to provide on-the-job training for the babysitting service, incorporate monitoring functions in the app, and set up a customer service centre.

 

The Silver Award-winning project “Handyman” in the category of Start-up Business Plan aims to provide busy Hongkongers with a platform for finding helpers to do housework such as cleaning, buying food and cooking. The winning team was formed by Jonathan Cheung Ho-cheuk, Year 3 student from the Department of Management Sciences, and Alex Cho and May Lam Ka-yan, Year 3 students from the Department of Accountancy.

 

The project “Smart Pay” developed by Roy Suen Man-luen, a fresh graduate from the Department of Accountancy, and Henry Wan Kai-yin, Year 4 student from the Department of Information Systems, received a Bronze Award in the category of Start-up Business Plan. The project is a consolidated credit card platform for users to make transactions, check special offers for credit card, award points, and other services by using personalised payment security technologies such as fingerprint scanning and facial recognition.

  

The three teams earned their spots in the final national contest after winning the Hong Kong Regional Final Competition organised by Hong Kong New Generation Cultural Association. Accompanied by staff from CityU’s Knowledge Transfer Office, they went to Chengdu and competed against teams from other provinces and cities.