1776 and Hub China Announce Beijing Challenge Cup Winners
Washington, D.C. and Beijing, China (PRWEB) February 20, 2014 -- Today, 1776, an incubator platform located a few blocks from the White House, in partnership with Hub China, an innovation stage incubator that promotes entrepreneurial culture and the growth of international business, announced the winners of Challenge Cup for the Beijing region.
Challenge Cup is a startup competition spanning 16 cities around the world and culminating in Washington, D.C. to find the world’s most promising startups innovating in the categories of education, healthcare, energy, and smart cities.
Eleven startups competed during the event on February 19. The competitors also participated in an accelerator program for the two days preceding the competition.
Distinguished judges included Evan Burfield, cofounder of 1776, Monica Liu, Gao Baoxu of Langmafeng Venture, Ning Shao of DC China Center, Ning Tao of Innovative Works, Yang Dong, and a team from Pearson.
“With a booming startup culture and support from the government, Beijing is quickly becoming a hub for the latest in technology innovation,” said Evan Burfield, cofounder of 1776. “The winning startups have great ideas to tackle large-scale, global problems and we’re excited to see more from them at the Challenge Festival in May.”
The regional winners include:
• Education: iMedia.FM—A media and education company that created an animated narrative curriculum based on Common Core standards. The first product, A7 Edutainment, is a complete curriculum ecosystem that is being launched online and as licensed books.
• Energy: J&F Technology—An automotive repair and diagnostic platform focused on solutions for vehicle electrical control systems. The unit plugs into a car and tells the user the status of the vehicle through a smartphone application. J&F has the potential to reduce emissions and energy waste by increasing engine efficiency by up to 15 percent.
• Healthcare: Coyote Bioscience—Coyote Bioscience creates innovative, powerful, and user-friendly devices for genome amplification. With the company’s Parallel Thermal Cycling, they are already generating $1.2 million in revenue.
• Smart Cities: ScanTrust—Allows supply chain reps, distributors, or consumers to authenticate that what they are buying is real or counterfeit. ScanTrust has developed a unique secure geographical layer in existing QR codes to prevent theft and counterfeit scamming.
The next Challenge Cup competitions will be held in New Delhi, India on Februrary 22nd followed by San Francisco, CA on February 27th. The Challenge Festival will run from May 10th to May 17th, with the headline event, the Challenge Cup Global Finals, taking place the afternoon of May 17th. View the schedule and register for badges here. Challenge Cup Global Partners include: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, District of Columbia, Pearson, TechCocktail, iStrategyLabs, Microsoft, and The Aspen Institute.
To be accepted, companies must be less than three years old, have less than $3M USD in revenue to date, have a scalable product or service already in the market, evidence some level of traction (active users, enterprise customers, or revenue), and have raised less than $1.5M USD in capital. Companies can apply on http://challengecup.1776dc.com/apply.
About 1776
1776 is a major initiative focused on helping entrepreneurs seeking to reinvent our lives as citizens. Located just blocks from the White House, 1776 convenes and accelerates startups from around the world by connecting them to the political, intellectual, social and financial capital that make Washington, D.C. unique. Visit http://www.1776dc.com or @1776dc on Twitter for more information.
Media Contacts:
1776
Lisa Throckmorton
703-287-7803
1776dc(at)speakerboxpr(dot)com
Lisa Throckmorton, SpeakerBox PR, +1 703-287-7816, [email protected]
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