The 2020InnoBay International Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition kicked off in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province on May 9. 

The event, jointly sponsored by the Administrative Committee of Hangzhou Bay New Area and the Ningbo Research Institute of Fudan University, is soliciting projects with a focus on life health, intelligent manufacturing and green technology. 

Winners will receive an investment of up to 10 million yuan ($1.44 million), as well as support such as preferential policies and professional incubation services.

They are also likely to be included in the city's talent introduction initiative, meaning they will be eligible to receive various subsidies offered by the local government.

Due to the pandemic, the competition will feature an "online + offline" mode for the first time.

Its preliminaries are scheduled to be held in domestic cities including Beijing, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Xi'an, Hefei, Shanghai and Hangzhou, as well as in overseas countries such as the United States, Germany, Australia, Singapore and South Korea. 

Several regional semi-finals will be moved online, and the final will be staged in Ningbo in November. 

The event, now in its fifth year, has gathered more than 2,000 projects from across the world to date. Among them, over 40 are being built in Ningbo, with some being incubated to become world-leading enterprises.