2026 Finalists

The Greece–Türkiye hackathon is a cross-border innovation programme bringing together young people from Greece and Türkiye to co-develop solutions for smart cities and the green transition. Using a hybrid format and mixed-nationality teams, it turns shared regional challenges into collaborative, scalable innovation outcomes.

Startups frequently encounter scaling barriers, including resource constraints, restricted validation opportunities, and limited access to global markets. Pangyo Techno Valley addresses these challenges by providing full-cycle support from incubation to global expansion, connecting startups, corporations, and researchers through acceleration, investment networking, testbeds, and commercialization support within an integrated innovation ecosystem.

A trinational cross-incubation system co-creating bioeconomy ventures across Brazil, Colombia and Peru's Amazon triple frontier. Integrating quadruple helix governance, ancestral knowledge and trinational mentorship, it transforms historically neglected border territories into replicable innovation microcosms — connecting universities, governments, companies and indigenous communities through shared incubation, mobility and market access.

The JOIST future techbox is a compact, 10 m² physical digital innovation module that combines high-touch demos (3D printing, VR/AR) with a guided web platform to diagnose business needs, recommend tailored services, capture leads and enable immediate actions (bookings, purchases, registrations). Designed as a sales and affiliate engine, the TechBox links local physical traffic to JOIST's digital ecosystem—Marketplace, EUcalls, Academy —turning curiosity into measurable commercial value for both hosts and JOIST.

​Led by RMIT University and delivered with partners across the Melbourne Innovation District, the regenerative futures challenge is a place-based program aligned to RMIT's Living Plan, enabling communities, researchers and industry to co-design and test solutions in an urban precinct, operating as a living lab for inclusive and regenerative city innovation.

Much high-value research remain locked in laboratories due to technical complexity. PSU Science Park established the Innovation Design Center to bridge research and everyday life through design—transforming knowledge into products, communication, and media. Evolving into cultural design, IDC now integrates identity and co-creation to deliver meaningful, market-ready impact.

Generación tech acts from basic education as a response to this strategic challenge: to build early vocations sustaining the District's STI ecosystem. It promotes the development of STEAM skills and scientific thinking in teachers and students.

eXperience OpenCloud is a digital uprising against the hardware tax. We've weaponized our Rated-3 Data Center to provide startups with elite Virtual Machines and sovereign storage. From software dev to massive data hosting, we empower local rebels to outscale global giants using premium-grade cloud on a garage budget.

Weiguang Life Science Park integrates production, living, and ecological elements to create China's first biopharmaceutical industry park centred on synthetic biology achievement transformation. It features 30% green coverage, a 1,000-ton/day wastewater facility, smart waste systems, and comprehensive environmental management to establish Shenzhen's leading environmental protection model.

The UFRJ Science Park living lab transforms the park into a real-world innovation platform where startups, researchers and companies test and validate solutions in real conditions. By accelerating technological maturity and connecting university, industry and territory, it turns experimentation into impact, learning and ecosystem transformation.