The 10th "Maker in China" Ningbo Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Conclude: 26 High-Quality Projects Compete in Advancing New Quality Productivity

On September 9, the finals of the 10th "Maker in China" Ningbo Small and Medium Enterprises Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition successfully concluded at the Ningbo Radio and Television Center. Li Guanding, Vice Mayor of the Ningbo City, attended the event and delivered a speech. Hua Bitian, Deputy Secretary-General of the Ningbo Municipal People’s Government, also participated in the event. More than 150 people, including project teams, representatives from municipal and county-level economic and information technology departments, innovation platforms, financial institutions, small and micro enterprise parks, and guest judges from industry, education, research, and investment sectors, witnessed the grand event.

In his speech, Li Guanding emphasized that Ningbo has always regarded innovation and entrepreneurship as crucial drivers for advancing new industrialization, cultivating new quality productivity, and achieving high-quality urban development. In recent years, Ningbo has continuously optimized its innovation and entrepreneurship environment, attracting a pool of high-end talents, establishing high-level platforms, and implementing high-quality projects, thereby fostering an excellent ecosystem for the high-quality development of small and medium enterprises. Since its first session in 2017, the "Maker in China" Ningbo Small and Medium Enterprises Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition has given rise to a large number of specialized, fine, and innovative enterprises and "little giant" companies that have broken through "bottleneck" technologies. Winning the national championship for five consecutive years, the competition has become an important window for Ningbo to showcase corporate innovation vitality and build an internationally influential intelligent manufacturing innovation ecosystem. He stated that Ningbo offers vast opportunities for talent innovation and entrepreneurship, and he hopes that all project teams will take this competition as an opportunity to deeply cultivate Ningbo’s fertile ground for innovation and entrepreneurship, take root, and grow into towering trees.

It is reported that this year’s competition carried forward the theme of "Showcasing Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Chasing Dreams in Ningbo to Win the Future". The participants were highly focused on Ningbo’s high-quality small and medium enterprises, with 1,231 innovation and entrepreneurship projects from both inside and outside the city enthusiastically registering. Among them, over 400 were specialized, fine, and innovative enterprises or national-level "little giant" enterprises, accounting for nearly 30% of the total. The competition precisely set up three thematic categories: high-end equipment and robotics, artificial intelligence, and new-generation information technologies, while also linking key tracks such as new materials and life health, resonating with Ningbo’s "361" industrial map. The projects generally responded to national strategic needs, focusing on underlying technological innovation and industrial application breakthroughs to leverage the development of new quality productivity in various industries. The finals jury brought together industry leaders, experts, scholars, and renowned investors from Ningbo’s "industry, education, research, and investment" sectors, providing on-site scoring and immediate feedback, offering projects a one-stop acceleration channel integrating "technology + market + capital".

After layers of selection and fierce competition in the preliminary (thematic) and semi-final rounds, 16 enterprises and 10 startup teams ultimately won first, second, and third prizes as well as excellence awards in the enterprise and startup categories. Among them, the Ningbo Chipfound Precision Technology Co., Ltd.’s project "Breakthrough and Industrialization of Ultra-Precision Circular Cutting Equipment for AI Chip Manufacturing" and Ningbo XPTC Technology Co., Ltd.’s project "R&D and Industrialization of Non-Contact Fiber Optic Connectors" won the first prize in the enterprise category. The Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center’s project "Pioneer of High-Precision Operational Humanoid Robots" won the first prize in the startup category. Some of the winning projects will also represent Ningbo in the national finals.

"These winning projects not only demonstrate the innovation vitality of Ningbo’s small and medium enterprises but also aim to address challenges of 'filling gaps and overcoming shortcomings’, achieving industrial upgrading through breakthroughs in underlying technologies," said a relevant official from the Ningbo Municipal Economic and Information Technology Bureau. He added that the conclusion of the competition is not the end but the starting point for the accelerated growth of high-quality projects.

A series of supporting measures implemented throughout the competition will continue to provide a "combination punch" of policies, funding, and services to pave a fast track for the growth of winning projects, promoting the transition of innovation achievements from the competition arena to the market.