Paralleling global innovators in the like of Steve Jobs, Shenzhen innovators such as Ren Zhengfei of Huawei, Wang Chuanfu of BYD, Pony Ma of Tencent and Frank Wang of DJI have profoundly transformed the way we live, work and communicate. The biggest challenge for the coming decades, which will certainly be shaped by technology-driven innovation, is that we will need more innovators and innovative products.

To address this challenge, Shenzhen InnoX Academy（InnoX） was founded in 2021. InnoX’s founder Professor LI Zexiang from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, has incubated 140+ smart hardware startups, including 1 listed company and 6 unicorn companies, with DJI being the most well-known. Since its establishment, InnoX has been committed to building an ecosystem that nurtures innovative and entrepreneurial talents, cultivates tech startups, and creates a community for tech startup founders. InnoX aims to explore new paths in engineering education and empower individuals, businesses, and cities through innovation. InnoX provides systematic entrepreneurial studies, leading academic and industry experts as mentors, rapid prototyping facilities, supply chain resources and marketing channels. It aims to establish a robust ecosystem for talent development, project incubation, and entrepreneur empowerment.

InnoX connects various resources based on entrepreneurs' needs and fosters a collaborative community where entrepreneurs can thrive together. InnoX also collaborates with universities to help redesign their curriculum, train teachers and empower students, expanding the pool of potential entrepreneurs.

Over the past three years, InnoX has attracted 7000+ individuals and 300+ startups to the platform from all over China and the world. Currently, 400+ entrepreneurs and 60+ projects are being incubated at InnoX, including 16 angel round projects, 27 seed round projects and 16 pre-seed round projects, with focus on smart sports, smart homes, smart health and smart living. Impressively, the 16 angel stage projects have successfully raised over 55 million RMB, with a combined valuation reaching 617million RMB.

Meanwhile, InnoX realizes that teenager years are critical for sparking early interest for entrepreneurship, fostering creativity, and enhancing overall competencies and shaping characters. InnoX has ventured into innovation and human-centered STEM education for youth in 2024 and aspires to contribute more in this area.