Macao’s 928 Challenge, a startup competition between Portuguese-speaking countries and China, has won the Best Startup Ideation & Competition Programme Award from the Angola Innovation Summit 2022, which was held online from 25-29 July.
“This is a great achievement,” said City University of Macau (CityU) lecturer Marco Rizzolio, who co-founded the initiative alongside CityU’s Dean of the Faculty of Business José Alves last year.
The 928 Challenge aims to build bridges and develop entrepreneurship between China and Portuguese-speaking countries through sustainability-oriented businesses, while also strengthening academic collaborations between universities.
According to Rizzolio, the 928 Challenge’s vision is to “continue helping young minds” to develop entrepreneurship and innovation. “We strongly believe in connecting the different ecosystems of entrepreneurship and innovation within the Portuguese-speaking countries, creating a network between governments, companies and universities,” he added.
Launched in 2020, the Angola Innovation Summit is a global network-cum-annual summit that promotes awareness about innovation and technology as key factors for organisational competitiveness and for social and economic development, particularly in Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP).
The summit connects global experts, business leaders, policymakers, academics, entrepreneurs and investors, and presents the Innovation Awards, whose nominees are evaluated by a panel of independent innovation experts, academics and journalists.
Aiming to promote the best initiatives that make use of innovation and technology to transform, impact and modernise the market in Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOP), the Innovation Awards consist of 12 categories, including the one won by the 928 Challenge.
