The sixth China Optics Valley 3551 International Entrepreneurship Competition is a special competition organized by the East Lake High-tech Development Zone (also known as Optics Valley of China, or OVC).

Researchers and research teams who want to take part must have a desire to start businesses in OVC. Projects should belong to future industries – optoelectronics, life and health, artificial intelligence, digital economy, brain science, and quantum information.

The competition will be held in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific, in addition to its main venue in the Optics Valley of China.

The competition's panel of judges consists of investors, entrepreneurs, and specialists from relevant areas, and the evaluation of each project will be based on the innovativeness, researchers' background, and marketization level and financing situation of the project.

A preliminary competition will be arranged online on Nov 19, followed by the quarter-finals from November to early December. The semi-finals and finals will be held from late December to January 2022 with road shows to be held online or offline.

One special award, two first-place prizes, six second-place prizes and 10 third-place prizes will be given out during the finals, and all researchers of awarded projects will be rewarded, with the maximum award standing at 10 million yuan ($1.56 million), after the projects are established in OVC.

In addition, researchers whose projects make the top 20 will be recognized as 3551 talent and be granted an award of up to 1 million yuan.