【1776携手Binggo“挑战杯”创业大赛邀你赴美国加速】

全球性创业大赛，

世界级创业资源，

1776携手Binggo邀你赴美国加速！

【“挑战杯”创业大赛（The Challenge Cup）】由1776在16个城市举行的一场全球创业挑战竞赛，期待找到提供全球重要领域变革解决方案的初创企业，包括4个重点领域：教育、能源、健康和智慧城市。

【“挑战杯”创业大赛北京站】由Binggo学社联合主办，筛选过程：报名—初选—40支团队入围北京站决赛—2天加速培训&1分钟演说—8支团队最终角逐—5分钟演说—选出4支获胜团队。北京站决赛时间为2015年1月13和14日，获胜的4支团队将代表中国参加2015年5月在华盛顿的全球总决赛。

【项目要求】

      1. 行业领域：

    教育——以更低的成本帮助更多人接受到更高质量的教育；

    健康——以更低成本改善社会健康和生活水平；

    能源——解决伴随着全球人口增长而来的能源匮乏问题，提高能源使用效率、保护环境；

    智慧城市——在交通、公共安全、市政、平台建设、社群组织等方面让都市生活和发展更加和谐、便利与可持续。

2. 有可扩展的产品和市场；

3. 成立三年以内；

4. 已融资金额少于150万美元；

5. 迄今为止收入少于300万美元。

【奖项设置】

1. 进入北京决赛项目有机会加入Binggo学社，享受专属创业服务和资源支持。

2. 北京站优胜者4名将受邀参加为期一周的华盛顿创业加速之旅（主办方提供往返机票和住宿），参加2015年5月的1776创业节，与来自世界各地的创业人才及投资人、企业家、专家导师、官员进行专题讨论、宴会、圆桌会议、私密分享会等多种形式的交流分享活动，最终进入“2015挑战杯全球总决赛”角逐超过65万美金的奖励；

3. Binggo学社、1776的公关媒体团队及媒体合作伙伴将利用其强大的公关推广渠道和专业性，借助全球范围内有影响力和传播性的媒体平台，进行创业节活动的宣传报道；

4. free trip：美国国家公立特许学校联盟、美国教育委员会、美国心脏病协会（ACC）、美国智能运输协会等权威机构作为战略合作伙伴，将邀请分赛区的优胜者出席各自的论坛、峰会等，安排演讲、分享和讨论会，并对接资源。

【支持单位】

中关村科技园区管理委员会   

中关村科技园区海淀园管理委员会

微软创投

【支持媒体】

——————仅限英文报名  PLEASE APPLY IN ENGLISH——————

1776 Partners with Binggo School to Host Challenge Cup 2015 in Beijing; Microsoft Ventures to Serve as Supporting Partner

Global incubator and seed fund to identify China’s most promising startups as part of international competition

Washington, D.C. and Beijing, China—1776 and Binggo School today announced they will join forces in Beijing on January 14 to host Challenge Cup 2015, a global competition that spans 16 cities in 11 countries to identify the most promising startups with the best ideas to solve the world’s biggest challenges. Microsoft Ventures, the tech powerhouse’s premier startup initiative, will also serve as a supporting partner in bringing the Challenge Cup to Beijing.

The Beijing event underscores China’s rise as a leader in the global startup community and highlights the contributions of its innovators in tackling some of the world’s most difficult and intractable social challenges.

“We are thrilled to be bringing the Challenge Cup back to Beijing, where a vibrant startup community is driving transformative change throughout the region,” said 1776 cofounder Evan Burfield. “This competition is about identifying China’s most auspicious, problem-solving startups and connecting them to the mentorship and resources they need to achieve their full potential.”

Challenge Cup participants compete for $650,000 in prizes in four categories—education, environment, health, and mobility and cities—as well as the chance to connect with mentors, corporate partners, policymakers, and potential investors.

“Beijing has already established itself as a leading hub for innovative startups who are tackling some of our most fundamental challenges—and they will benefit tremendously from participating in this competition,” said Jun Qin, Founder of Binggo School, one of the leading incubators in Beijing. “The Challenge Cup will be an invaluable opportunity for these startups to connect with influencers, meet with potential partners, and really take their ideas to the next level.”

In addition to Beijing, Challenge Cup 2015 takes place at 15 other regional sites, including Washington D.C., Chicago, Toronto, Sydney, New York City, Tel Aviv, Amman, Nairobi, Santiago, Mumbai, Austin, Boston, Berlin, Dublin, San Francisco. Each city will produce four regional winners in each of the four categories, with 64 regional winners chosen to compete in 1776’s Challenge Festival in May – a weeklong event in Washington, D.C. that gives these startups an opportunity to pitch investors, connect with new mentors, meet with policymakers, and compete for prizes and funding.

“The Challenge Cup connects the region’s most promising, civically-engaged startups to the growing, global community of problem-solving entrepreneurs,” said France Du, Director of the Greater China Region for Microsoft Ventures, which will serve as a supporting partner for the Beijing competition. “Forging these connections will help startups grow and scale far more quickly than they could otherwise—and that’s huge for these young companies.”

To power Challenge Cup 2015, and ensure the best startups and venture partners have a seat at the table, 1776 has forged partnerships with leading stakeholders, including New Enterprise Associates, the world’s largest venture capital firm, Revolution, the Case Foundation, Capital Factory, Rocketspace, Oasis 500, Betahaus, NDRC, 1871, ATP Innovations, INcubes, The Library, NYU Polytechnic Incubator, and others to be announced.

“These partnerships will further develop the crucial commercial relationship between Washington, D.C. and China,” said Ning Shao, Chief Executive of the D.C. China Center, a public-private partnership between D.C. and China, and a supporting partner for the Challenge Cup. “And not only that—they will lead to a greater exchange of ideas between American and Chinese entrepreneurs.”

Candidates for the Challenge Cup competition are startups that are compelling, world changing, and highly scalable, and that aim to make tangible differences in people’s lives – not just build the hottest new app. Through Challenge Cup, entrepreneurs are not only connected to the investors and mentors they need to succeed, but corporations and policymakers in some of the world’s most entrenched industries and government entities are introduced to these innovators’ fresh ideas that have the potential to solve big, difficult challenges.

Last year’s inaugural Challenge Cup was enormously successful. Out of 5,000 applications, 480 startups competed in 16 cities in nine countries. Out of the 64 startups that competed at the Challenge Festival, eight startups were selected to receive funding from 1776 directly, several others received significant investment from other funds or partners, and 1776 set up more than 70 individual meetings between the startups, potential investors, corporate partners, and policymakers.

This year, 1776 is taking the Challenge Cup to the next level by announcing ChallengeX, a feeder competition in which startup incubators around the world have the opportunity to host their own competitions, with the winners automatically entered as finalists into the nearest Challenge Cup regional competition. This means more cities, more startups, and more great ideas. Participating ChallengeX cities include Detroit, New Orleans, and Buenos Aires, with more locations to be announced at a later date.

Winners from last year’s Challenge Cup are already enjoying remarkable success disrupting and innovating the world’s most entrenched industries, including:

• PlugSurfing, a Berlin-based mobile app that allows drivers of electric vehicles to quickly locate charging stations and process payments on their mobile devices—with the dual benefit of making energy-efficient vehicles more practical for German drivers while reducing fossil fuel consumption.
• RideScout, a mobile app that pulls together a host of transportation sources and allows users to quickly plan trips. RideScout was recently acquired by Daimler after 1776 fueled its early growth into a startup capable of innovating ride-share technology within Germany’s highly-regulated transportation sector.
• eduCanon, an online learning environment that creates and shares interactive video lessons to help teachers, especially those who are new to the profession, increase student engagement and improve their ability to plan the next day’s lesson. By helping teachers succeed early on, eduCanon is enabling a better experience for students and teachers.

ABOUT 1776

1776 is a global incubator and seed fund that finds promising startups focused on solving the world’s most fundamental challenges and helps engineer their success.

Just two years old, 1776 has helped more than 250 startups grow by vetting their viability and connecting them to a “swat team” of support, from investors to mentors, government officials, and institutional market partners that they need to succeed.

1776 focuses on startups in the most broken, entrenched industries and sectors that impact millions of lives every day – specifically education, environment, health, and mobility and cities.

Because solving big challenges in entrenched industries requires a different approach, 1776 is revolutionizing the startup landscape. From its hub in Washington, D.C., it is sparking a global movement of “problem-solving’ startups through its Challenge Cup and Startup Federation, the premiere network of incubators throughout the world.

By creating a global community of startups, mentors, partners, and investors, 1776 is proving that its unique approach to incubation can create a sustained cycle of innovation that connects existing enterprises, corporations, and government entities to the startups that are solving the world’s biggest problems.

1776 was founded in February 2013 by Donna Harris, a serial entrepreneur and the former Managing Director of the Startup America Partnership, and Evan Burfield, founder of netDecide, a provider of enterprise wealth management solutions, and the consulting firm Synteractive.

ABOUT BINGGO SCHOOL

Binggo School is oriented in business acceleration of startup, focusing on providing domestic and overseas startups with angel investment, business model optimization, business resources connection, and marketing, helping startups to expand market quickly and to achieve business value, through comprehensive business resources integration and a circulate training plan.

Binggo School is also an important platform within the Dept. of Entrepreneurial Incubation of Tsinghua Holdings Technology & Innovation Holdings Co., Ltd (THTI). THTI is a leading supplier of science and technology service in China and creates the business system in full-chain development mode via developing the professional services in the following three steps including: angel investment, entrepreneurial incubation, and project landing within the science park.

Taking the advantage of the rich overseas business resources of THTI and leveraging business resources of Zhongguancun, which is the most prosperous area in China concerning innovation and entrepreneurship, Binggo School already brings business incubation into a global scale. Through activities like Inter-Pie, Binggo School initiates lots of chances for experience exchange and resource connection with the world-famous innovation centers such as Silicon Valley, Israel, Switzerland, etc. Binggo School also connects with the TIPark Silicon Valley in developing a China-Silicon Valley Immersion Program to organize discussions between entrepreneurial teams that have come back from abroad and domestic teams, giving domestic teams chances to meet the Silicon Valley talents and resources they may need for their businesses, and to help the overseas startups which have the need to develop in China to explore the Chinese markets.

ABOUT MICROSOFT VENTURES

Microsoft Ventures is a startup initiative designed to attract and nurture top entrepreneurs from around the world through its seed fund, accelerators and community programs. It is a strategic partner for promising startups around the world focused on business growth & development, industrial strength technology and beautiful usable products.

For more information:http://challengecup.1776dc.com/