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‘Dark Horse’ Back to Silicon Valley

First held in 2014, the ‘Dark Horse’ competition has again set foot in Silicon Valley. On the afternoon of September 12 local time, the Silicon Valley qualification trial of the Dark Horse Competition of World New Material Industry starts. At last, 5 projects succeed in advancing into the final held in Ningbo out of the 30 competing projects. 
The polymer PM2.5 filtering membrane developed by Professor Cuiyi from Materials Engineering Department of Stanford University wins unanimous approval of the audience and judges. Some audience even gives Professor Cui a nickname of ‘Big Whiz Cui’. ‘This project can not only filter PM2.5, but also bacteria and virus. It can be widely applied in things like building screen window and auto vent pipe cover. The cost is almost equivalent to that of traditional screen window cloth.’ says Professor Cui, ‘and it is assessed that its market size will reach 80 billion dollars.’ He hopes to raise a capital of 20 million dollars and accelerate the establishment of the production line of the project in China. The project is awarded the first prize. Many investment companies on the occasion have extended the olive branch to Professor Cui, and reached primary agreement on investment.
Doctor David Abram who also comes from material department of Stanford University brings an electronic light-adjust film project named ‘NexTint’. The project combines the privileges of low-cost, glare moderation and energy saving. ‘Take America for example, the cost of a skyscraper on air-conditioning, heating, etc. can reach 400 thousand dollars per year. This technology is estimated to be widely applied in glare reducing, nation-wide glass style renovation, and house, car window and glasses around the world.’ says David Abram.


Apart from high level and high-tech projects, there are also some ‘small but significant’ projects which represent the silicon dream of some grass root people. A 28 year old oversea student from China Qiu Weini introduced to the reporter her project ‘c friends – cancer patients communicating platform. ‘We strive to establish the first cancer study database built directly by patients, to help the cancer patients sharing information of symptoms, anti-cancer experience, and medicine taking and so on.’ says Qiu Weini. The idea comes from the cancer treating experience of one of her relatives. She found out after investigation that the doctors in China receives 60 cancer patients on average per day, and the communication time between the doctors and patients is less than 10 minutes, which is greatly insufficient. ‘Doctors alone cannot satisfy the special needs of the patients. Now the US and European countries have all made data from the patients as important basis for policy making and issuing new medicines.’ So she and her team members Zhang Li and Xu Peng give up salary of over 100 thousand dollars and start the entrepreneurial process of the project.
The World Dark Horse Competition of New Materials is held by ‘Entrepreneurs’ media and Ningbo New Material Technology Park, and entirely undertaken by Zhejiang Saichuang Future Investment Managing Co. let. The first competition in 2014 has attracted projects from Beijing, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Silicon Valley, and this time in 2015 adding Wuhan and Boston

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