Innovation conference helps spark ideas

Entrepreneurs from around the globe brought 710 cutting-edge science technology projects to the free trade zone to compete in the third Shanghai FTZ overseas talent innovation conference on Wednesday. 

Among them, some 60 projects won the chance to attend road shows in the following two days.

As an important part of the overseas talent innovation base at the FTZ, an incubator established three years ago was dedicated to helping entrepreneurs overseas finding the right opportunities and funding in Shanghai. The previous conferences drew more than 850 projects to shore.

In this year’s conference, a new player Plug and Play, which invested in Google and PayPal, will help spot the next tech star.

Biotechnology company Eccogene is one of those that benefited from the project. It registered at the base in April and has already received its A round financing by September.

“Many biotech companies in the US also need outsourced labs from Shanghai to help with experiments because of their low cost and good quality,” Zhou Jingye, co-founder of Eccogene, said. “So why not take full advantage of that and start a company back here?”

Zhou told Shanghai Daily that the base had helped his company quickly locate institutional investors who specialize in biotech companies. 

Many famous academic institutions such as National Center for Protein Science and Shanghai Tech University are also located in the area, which made it easier for Zhou’s company to communicate with various labs.