À NỘI — The Innovative Technopreneurs Contest, an annual event for the Vietnamese start-up community, is officially open for registration from now until November 5.

The contest is held within the framework of Techfest 2018, a national festival for innovative start-ups, hosted by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The 2018 Innovative Technopreneurs contest will have three rounds – the elimination round, semi finals and final, with the participation of notable startups from seven fields: Agritech, Edtech, Medtech, Tourism, Fintech, 4.0 Technology and Impact Technology.

Innovative entrepreneurial groups and individuals can sign up to participate in the contest as individuals or in groups of three people maximum. Prospective participants can register on the Techfest website techfest.vn

The 10 teams with the highest results in the semi-finals will be chosen to advance to the final round which will be held on December 1. Each team will have five minutes to pitch in English and three minutes to answer questions from the judging panel.

The winners will be granted trips to the US or Korea for investment matching and connecting to global innovative ecosystems. 

From the first small-scale contest hosted in 2015 up until now, the Innovative Technopreneurs Contest has drawn the participation of 500 startups (300 of which participated in the 2017 contest). Since 2015, the top 10 startups from these competitions have managed to secure investments worth millions of dollars and also connect with local and international startup ecosystems.

Techfest 2018 is scheduled to take place from November 25 to 29 in the central city of Đà Nẵng. It is expected to welcome 4,500 participants with a series of activities to connect investors with enterprises.

A highlight of this year’s event is a journey themed ‘Youth with innovative start-ups,’ which takes place from November 18 to 29.

One hundred start-ups with the best ideas will take part in the start-up journey, which will go through 11 cities and provinces including Hà Nội, Hải Phòng, Nghệ An, Quảng Bình, Thừa Thiên-Huế, Đà Nẵng, Bình Định, Quảng Nam, Lâm Đồng, HCM City and Cần Thơ. — VNS