Campus Digest

HKBU collaborates with Alibaba Cloud to launch Startup Weekend Hong Kong 2025

Monday, 28 April 2025

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The final pitch and award presentation ceremony takes place at the Alibaba Hong Kong’s headquarters.
Mr Felix Lio, member of the HKBU Young Entrepreneurship Committee, provides feedback to the teams following their final pitch.
The Champion team Balvito pitches their ideas to the panel of judges.
Members of the first runner-up team Du-Shell receive professional advice from their mentor.
The second runner-up team Audacity discusses their strategies with their mentor.

The “techstars_Startup Weekend Hong Kong for Social Good”, a 54-hour hackathon organised by TriAngle of the Centre for Innovative Service-Learning, took place from 21 to 23 March on campus and at Alibaba Hong Kong’s headquarters. More than 40 participants forming 11 social enterprise teams leveraged new technologies, including GenAI, to develop innovative prototypes addressing societal needs, with the support of Alibaba Cloud as the tech enabler. The three winning teams will participate in the Alibaba Yunqi 2025 Conference at Hangzhou in September.

Balvito, the champion team of the hackathon, aims to empower students with learning difficulties by transforming static documents into dynamic, interactive learning experiences. Du-Shell, the first runner-up team, focuses on transforming durian shells into sodium-ion batteries suitable for EV and eVTOL applications, and robots, while Audacity, the second runner-up team, aims to deliver sustainable, high-performance, and innovative sports apparel to customers while contributing to the advancement of Hong Kong’s sports industry.

During the event, each team, comprising at least two HKBU students, joined various workshops and sessions. They received guidance from their mentors to design and carry out effective experiments, as well as to analyse the data they collected. The teams then presented leading concepts that incorporated robust business strategies, tackling issues like climate change and the escalating prevalence of mental health concerns. They received invaluable feedback from the mentors and judges, which included industry leaders and HKBU Young Entrepreneur Committee members.