HKUST Teams Secure Four Awards at HICOOL Global Entrepreneur Summit in Beijing
SingTao · 1 SOURCESabout 1 hour ago2 MIN
Summary
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) achieved remarkable success at the 2026 HICOOL Global Entrepreneur Summit and Startup Competition, held in Beijing from August 26 to 29. Among 11 competing teams from the university, entries secured four awards spanning the overseas category—championship, first prize, second prize, and third prize—demonstrating HKUST's strength in deep technology and frontier innovation. The winning projects centered on electronic skin technology and spatial intelligence solutions with broad applications in robotics, healthcare, and smart manufacturing.
Key Points
- The HICOOL summit attracted over 10,000 startup projects from 141 countries and regions, with approximately 600 exhibitors participating in the event .
- HKUST's Moskin project, developed by ModSense Technology co-founded by Yan Chaoxu, a PhD graduate from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, won both the overseas championship and first prize .
- Moskin is a multi-modal metamaterial full-body electronic skin capable of precisely sensing distributed 3D force magnitude, direction, slip, static friction, material texture, and temperature with high sensitivity and durability .
- The No-Sky Innovations team, established by Pan Jie (an MPhil graduate) and incubated through the Hong Kong Centre for Construction Robotics under InnoHK, secured second prize for their spatial intelligence infrastructure featuring real-time 3D laser scanning and autonomous indoor inspection drones .
- HKUST Vice President for Knowledge Transfer Kim Shin-chul noted that university members have founded over 2,000 active startups, including 11 unicorns and 22 companies that achieved IPO or acquisition, with a patent utilization rate of 33% .
Why It Matters
The sweeping success of HKUST teams at this international startup competition highlights Hong Kong's growing prominence in deep technology research and commercialization. These innovations in electronic skin and spatial intelligence address critical needs in embodied AI, medical devices, and smart construction—sectors poised to drive the next wave of economic growth in the Greater Bay Area and beyond .
The sweeping success of HKUST teams at this international startup competition highlights Hong Kong's growing prominence in deep technology research and commercialization. These innovations in electronic skin and spatial intelligence address critical needs in embodied AI, medical devices, and smart construction—sectors poised to drive the next wave of economic growth in the Greater Bay Area and beyond .