The final of a competition involving overseas Chinese talents is held in the Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone, Anhui province on Jan 18. [Photo from WeChat account hefeigaoxinfabu]

A road show of 11 sci-tech projects, as well as the final of a global competition of innovation and entrepreneurship, was held in the Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone, Anhui province on Jan 18.

The 11 innovation and startup projects, presented by teams of overseas Chinese, were winners of contests that had been held in foreign cities such as Houston, Tokyo and Prague since last September. Focusing on a variety of new and advanced sectors including artificial intelligence, biomedicine and big data, they went head to head in a bid to win support from domestic investors.

Liu Liangliang, deputy director of the high-tech zone's administrative committee, explained that overseas Chinese are becoming increasingly important to the innovation-driven development of the zone. The organizers hoped that the competition of innovation and entrepreneurship targeting projects from this group of people could serve as a platform for better connections between overseas professionals and domestic entrepreneurs and investors.

Liu expected more projects with cutting-edge technologies and advanced research findings to be stationed in Hefei high-tech zone in the future.

After being briefed on the details of each project, the group of judges gave the first prize to a project for the real-time detection of viruses and bacteria.