At the eighth and final Jumpstarter 2017 semi-pitch event, 11 contestants pitched their breakthrough ideas on big data and artificial intelligence to a panel of formidable yet encouraging judges.
The Jumpstarter 2017 semi-pitch series concluded on much the same type of day as it began: a sunny afternoon at Cyberport, filled with promise. The eleven groups waited near the stage, rehearsing and mentally preparing for the six-minute pitch and four-minute Q&A sessions to come. After a brief welcome, a whistle began the proceedings, and few whirlwind hours later, four keen start-ups were celebrating their success and looking forward to the Jumpstarter 2017 Grand Finale.
Though the theme of the day was big data and artificial intelligence, the pitches themselves spanned the breadth of Hong Kong’s many industries – from quality assurance to F&B to education to brain surgery; the ideas bravely envisaging a world where data and AI reign supreme and can be used to answer any query, assist with any task and even modify human behaviour.
As with the other semi-pitch events, the winning pitches all sought to solve a tangible, real-world problem – something that, according to judge Tak Lo, managing partner at Zeroth, is crucial to the success of any new start-up. At the post-pitch judges’ discussion Mr Lo said that start-ups in the AI and big data fields need to focus on problem-solving, remarking that “even if [an idea] sounds great and looks great, it has to solve a problem.” Judge SL Ho, a self-described ‘serial entrepreneur’, continued by saying that start-ups should never “invent a problem to match their solution”, or else they run the risk of being irrelevant.
Each of the winners had a clear vision of success for their idea. Find Solution AI, winner of both a place in the final pitch competition and the Most Innovative Award, uses facial recognition software to measure the emotional state of students while working on device-based homework problems, with the goal of “maximising learning and minimising exam pressure.”
AlikeAudience, another finalist, seeks to empower advertisers to reach their target customers through a mobile-focused data management platform that collects “deep device-level data” – providing a greater picture of who customers actually “are”.
The third finalist, CuttingEdge MedTech Limited, aims to provide surgery patients with personalised, accurate, stable, minimally-invasive surgical technology using AI surgical planning. Their technology will make surgery safer and more efficient by creating 3D visualisations and ‘insertion path design’ for procedures like neural biopsies and brain pacemakers.
Winning the Most Favourite Award – as selected by the audience – was International Compliance Workshop Limited, a B2B platform designed to make testing and certification, quality control and procurement easier for businesses, eventually helping Hong Kong become an “international centre of global product testing and certification”.
The three finalists will compete against 21 other teams at November’s grand finale pitch event, where the three winning teams will each receive up to USD one million investment from the Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund.
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Video of Jumpstarter 2017 Big Data | AI City Semi Pitch(7th)
Startup Pitch! (by the sequence of on-stage presentation)
Panel Feedback : Jumpstart & Beyond
Award Presentation : Big Data | AI Semi Pitch
