Entrepreneur competition widens its scope

Entrepreneurs from the Yangtze River Delta region are taking part in the city’s annual competition for women entrepreneurs for the first time.

The competition kicked off on Tuesday at the Changyang Campus, an innovation focal point in a renovated textile factory in Yangpu District.

This year’s competition grants access to women in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces, hoping to link innovative resources in the region and form a regional innovation network.

A special category this year is for entrepreneurs whose startups and technology companies have contributed to the fight against the coronavirus.

Participants in the competition, which was launched in 2015, will receive professional coaching through online talks and offline classes. The winners who hope to register companies in Yangpu can enjoy favorable policies and incubation services at TusStar, a business incubator.

The competition is organized by the Shanghai Women’s Federation, Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, and the Yangpu District government.

According to the Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs 2019, women account for 25.6 percent of entrepreneurs in the Chinese mainland and one out of every four women entrepreneurs is in Shanghai.

Jiang Lei, winner of last year’s competition, said: “I feel so lucky to start my business in Shanghai, which is a perfect launch pad for women entrepreneurs.”

Her winning project was an online platform which links suppliers and users in the electronic chip industry. Over three years, it has finished two rounds of financing and now covers 250,000 people in the industry.