Business Daily Media

The Times Real Estate

.

FinTech Olympiad 2023 Inspires Tertiary Students to Leverage Fintech to Create Social Impacts, Creating Solutions to Transform People’s Lives and Business Practice for the Better

Vision Carbon by CityU Won Gold Medal with its Blockchain-based Carbon Trading Platform

HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach - 29 May 2023 - Hosted by the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and supported by HSBC, the FinTech Olympiad (FTOL) 2023 competition convening 94 teams across 18 universities from cities in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) was concluded with an award ceremony on 27 May.

In the final pitch round, 20 finalist teams pitched their financial technology-enabled business solutions to a panel of industry leaders. Vision Carbon, a team from the City University of Hong Kong won the Gold Medal and "The Best Cross-Border FinTech Solution" award with its blockchain-based project aimed to enhance the transparency, verifiability and traceability of carbon credit trading across the GBA. Vision Carbon's solution proposed to ease carbon offsets for both businesses and individuals.


Speaking at the ceremony today, Dr Isabel Yan, Associate Professor, Department of Economics & Finance, CityU remarked, "City U takes pride in organising the fourth FinTech Olympiad. Through the programme, FTOL is aimed to help students from all disciplines equip themselves with FinTech savviness and build industry connections that can enhance their competitiveness and employability, from a career development perspective. We encourage the younger generation to get prepared for being the key driver of the auspicious FinTech trend."

Ms. Charlotte Wong, Chief Information Officer, Hong Kong, HSBC said, "As a 'super-connector' between Hong Kong and the world, HSBC is committed to playing a vital role in pushing forward fintech development in Hong Kong. We are proud to support the Fintech Olympiad which enables our future generations to pave the way for their career development in fintech. It is great to see how well this year's participants across the GBA apply innovative ideas to address real life social needs. They have won themselves an entry ticket to the global fintech arena. Congratulations to all the awardees."

The FinTech Olympiad is a 10-month active learning programme, comprising of training, project-based competition and networking events aimed at equipping students and driving opportunities to fit their aspirations. Over 1,400 students from 20 tertiary institutions in the GBA applied to join the training sessions, a 230% increase from last year.

The competition was designed to encourage university students to work out solutions that can address social and economic problems encountered in our everyday life by applying their fintech knowledge and skills. 20 finalist teams were selected among 94 team entrants and were supported by mentors from a range of backgrounds. The finalist teams presented their solutions to a judging panel composed of industry leaders in a real-life business world setting. Their proposals were evaluated based on criteria including problem-solving, social impacts, innovation, thoughtfulness and leadership and communication.

The winning teams (see the list of awardees) will receive prize money and industry support from HSBC, internship opportunities from the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) and CityU HK Tech 300 funding possibilities to further develop their projects.

ASTRI and Hong Kong Digital Asset Society (HKDAS) are strategic partners of the FTOL, organising training workshops, meetup events and experts' sharing sessions for participants.

List of Awardees of Fintech Olympiad 2023 Competition

Award
Winning Team
Project
Representing
Gold Medal
Vision Carbon

(Team #20)
A blockchain-based trading platform applying smart contract, NFT and GameFi to make the trading of Voluntary Carbon Credits more transparent, verifiable and traceable so as to enable businesses to access high-quality carbon credits. The solution also facilitates individuals to offset carbon footprint through tree planting investment.
CityU
Silver Medal
K-Quant Group

(Team #12)
A platform delivering advanced and

Interpretable tools for everyday investors to conduct stock forecast and risk analysis. Its core technology combines a dynamic financial knowledge base with diverse data.
HKUST

(Guangzhou)
Bronze Medal
Bubble Taco

(Team #2)
The proposed solution collects Geographic Information System data of street vendors, including their business hours, movement tracking, consumption per capita of business area and real-time population heat map. By analysing these data, the system estimates the income level of the street vendorswhich can serve as alternative data for reference of personal credit evaluation.
CUHK

(Shenzhen)
Best Cross-Border Fintech Solution
Vision Carbon

(Team #20)


(see Gold Medal winning project)
CityU
Social Impact Award
COREearth

(Team #5)
A B2B carbon emission-based trading platform using AI and blockchain for emission monitoring, price prediction, corporate compliance and verification of carbon footprint. It is aimed to enhance the security and transparency of carbon trading between mainland China and EU. It also provides machine learning enabled analysis and carbon investment management service.
HKUST (Guangzhou)

Fireside Chat: Leveraging FinTech to Create Social Impacts

Experts were invited to give a Fireside chat at the ceremony. Ms. Amy Hui, Head of Customer Lifecycle Management (CLCM), Retail Banking and Wealth Management, HSBC, Mr. Alan Cheung, Senior Director, Trust and AI Technologies, Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) and award-winning music producer and singer-song writer Mr. Hanjin Tan, from Hong Kong Digital Asset Society (HKDAS) shared their views and insights on how to leverage financial technology to create positive social impacts.

Hashtag: #CityU #Fintech #HSBC


The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

FinTech Olympiad

FinTech Olympiad (FTOL), hosted by the City University of Hong Kong and supported by HSBC, is an active learning programme designed to empower and inspire young FinTech talents and to promote connections among the FinTech communities in the GBA. FTOL provides a series of training, a project-based competition and networking opportunities that equip post-secondary students in the GBA with FinTech knowledge, skills and connections that can enhance their competitiveness and employability and help them surf the auspicious FinTech trend.


City University of Hong Kong

Located in the heart of Hong Kong, CityU has a well-earned reputation as an innovative hub for research and professional education and for addressing global issues and empowering positive change.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited is the founding member of the HSBC Group. HSBC serves customers worldwide from offices in 62 countries and territories. With assets of US$2,990bn at 31 March 2023, HSBC is one of the world's largest banking and financial services organisations.

News from Asia

SonicWall Redefines Cybersecurity, Sets New Standard with Next Generation Network Security Solutions Built for MSPs

Delivering peace of mind with layered security, co-managed services and a unified management platform, SonicWall is helping partners grow services profitably through its continued innovation levera...

BNM’s Policy Rate Call Looms: Octa Broker Highlights Inflation, Exchange Rate and Trade Challenges

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - Media OutReach Newswire - 6 May 2025 - This Thursday, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) will announce its policy rate decision. While most analysts expect no change, Octa Broker ...

TDCX retains rank as the top Southeast Asian outsourced CX provider

Among top 17 globally in OA500 Index that evaluates BPO firms worldwide SINGAPORE - Media OutReach Newswire - 7 May 2025 - TDCX, a leading global business process outsourcing (BPO) company for te...

NIA Eyes Green Tech Unicorns Within Three Years, Four Thai Startups Set to Showcase at ‘Web Summit Qatar 2025’ as Global Green Innovation Market Forecasts 25% Annual Growth Over the Next Decade

BANGKOK, THAILAND - Media OutReach Newswire - 7 May 2025 - The Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI), through the National Innovation Agency (Public Organization)...

Trend Micro Delivers AI-Powered Threat Detection with AWS Infrastructure Support and NVIDIA Integration

Proactive security with AI-powered model built for modern enterprise workloads HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire - 7 May 2025 - Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global cyb...

Bee Choo Origin Strengthens CSR Efforts with Electric Van Donation to NKF

SINGAPORE - Media OutReach Newswire - 7 May 2025 – Bee Choo Origin, Singapore’s leading herbal hair care brand that specialises in hair fall treatment and oily scalp treatment, has reaffirmed it...

SMART launches new research group WISDOM to pioneer technologies that will help machines "see" like humans

Multi-million-dollar, three-and-a-half-year programme to advance Singapore’s optoelectronics and photonics capabilities and semiconductor industry, which generated over S$133 billion in 202...

Vingroup and the Rise of the ESG Ecosystem

Vingroup is positioning itself to lead Vietnam's ESG push, using its broad business network to drive sustainable growth at home and abroad, while eyeing partnerships in the Middle East's expanding ...

DFI Retail Group and Dingdong Announce Strategic Partnership With first-year sales target of HKD100 million

HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire - 7 May 2025 - DFI Retail Group (DFI or the Group), and Dingdong (Cayman) Limited (Dingdong or DDL), a leading fresh food e-commerce platform in the mainlan...

Blue Cross Surpasses Market Average with Over 20% Growth in 2024

HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire - 7 May 2025 - Blue Cross (Asia-Pacific) Insurance Limited ("Blue Cross") reported outstanding performance in the 2024 provisional statistics for Hong Kong ...

UNSW startup accelerator offers $200K to the next generation of Australian deeptech unicorns

UNSW Founders, Australia’s most recommended startup accelerator, has partnered with fund manager Luminary Partners to invest $200,000 each into 18...

The Future Is Now: AI Modernization Is Reshaping How Business Gets Done

The present business environment imposes stronger requirements on Australian organizations to match the fast-paced digital-first economy requireme...

Businesses losing an average of $493k from data integrity flaws

Managing data responsibly and effectively for the AI age can give organisations a strong competitive advantage, but many are failing to harness th...

AI shopping disruptor Zyft raises $7.5M to lead the next gen of retail tech

Zyft appoints new CEO, Richard Stevens, to lead the latest Waller Group success story, valued at $30 million SYDNEY, 28 April 2025: Zyft, the lea...

Little known law offers savvy Kiwis the opportunity to supercharge their retirement savings

A little-known legal amendment is being leveraged by savvy New Zealanders and expat Brits to supercharge their retirement savings. Not many peop...

Cutting edge AI technology designed for doctors to reduce patient wait times launched in NZ

New Zealand specialist doctors now have access to Artificial Intelligence technology to help reduce patient wait times and experts say it could be...

Sell by LayBy