The project of a team from Mozambique's Eduardo Mondlane University, to produce biogas from poultry farm waste, last Friday won second place in the "928 Challenge" competition in Macau.

In all, 16 finalist teams, ten of them Chinese, divided into two categories, universities and startups, competed in the final of the second edition of this Sino-Lusophone competition.

First place went to Shenzhen University, a Chinese city adjacent to Hong Kong, with a project on an oxygen generator for aquaculture, while third place went to Beijing Foreign Studies University, whose team presented a training plan on coffee cultivation in Timor-Leste, mainly aimed at women.

In the category of startups, China's OneDrop, with an application to prevent food waste already in operation, won first place, followed by two more Chinese startups: Ecomel Ecological & Technology and Reconnect Environmental Institute.

"This second edition confirmed the enormous interest around the platform concept" not only by the 1,250 participants and 256 teams, but also by the "quality of the projects presented", said to Lusa the two co-founders and coordinators of the "928 Challenge" José Alves and Marco Rizzolio, both from the City University of Macau (CityU).

According to José Alves, also director of the CityU Business School, this initiative allows the transfer of Chinese technologies to the Portuguese-speaking countries, in infrastructure, energy, telecommunications, agriculture, fishing or food, which are very necessary in these countries, and "many of which exist in Macau, in companies that can organize themselves and make these transfers.

"We hope that the Macau government and the [territory's] business environment will continue to support this initiative that can bring value-added projects to the Greater Bay Area and the Portuguese-speaking countries," he said.

In 2003, China established the Macau Special Administrative Region as a platform for economic and trade cooperation with the Portuguese-speaking countries Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe, and East Timor, through Forum Macau.

The Greater Bay Area is a Beijing project that aims to create a metropolis out of the special administrative regions of Macau and Hong Kong, and nine cities in Guangdong province (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, and Zhaoqing), with about 70 million inhabitants and a gross domestic product (GDP) of about 1.2 trillion euros.

At the opening of the award ceremony, a message from the Portuguese Secretary of State for Digitization and Administrative Modernization, Mário Campolargo, was broadcast on video, in which he stressed the existence of a common heritage between Macau and the Lusophone block that needs to be further explored.

The two responsible added that for next year they will "rethink the format" of the initiative "to take advantage of the teams and projects' potential", betting on a greater dissemination in the Greater Bay Area and in the Lusophone block.

On the other hand, the challenge will be called 929: nine cities in the Greater Bay Area, two Chinese special administrative regions (Macau and Hong Kong) and nine Portuguese-speaking countries, after Equatorial Guinea joined the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries and Forum Macau, they said.

The competition is jointly organized by the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and the Portuguese-Speaking Countries (Macao) and several universities from Macao and the Greater Bay Area and the State University of Rio de Janeiro.

The first places received a prize of 20 thousand patacas (2,480 euros), the second 10 thousand (1,240 euros) and the third five thousand (620 euros).