On November 27th, 2021, the ‘Idea Challenge Competition’ was successfully held by the Riyou Youth Center in Guangzhou. The work of

Ren Haiyan, Ming Yukun, Luo Yuxi, and Yang Zhouyang “Insect Plastic Newborn Project — Degrading Plastics by Tenebrio Molitor and

Extending the Industry Chain” has won first prize under the guidance of Lecturer Joel Lo Ribeiro. It is a historic achievement for our university with this being the first time winning this competition. Shanghai Yiyou Youth Service Center is a public welfare organization with the Shanghai Jing'an District Committee of the Communist Youth League as its business supervisor. The "Yiyou Youth Center" helped more than 10,000

college students explore career development directions, cultivate vocational skills, and experience actual job operations through the

development of youth career development activities. On the social innovation project branch line, the "Yiyou Youth Center" has also incubated more than 100 social innovation project ideas and project practices with more than 5,000 college students, empowering college students'

innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities.

A group photo of the winning teams

This competition attracted the participation of 13 university teams from the Greater Bay Area. The mission of the competition is to encourage university students' awareness on the social, environmental issues in the society, and to conduct an in-depth investigation, propose solutions and its potential to become an operating social innovation project.

Students of our faculty actively answered questions from the judges at the competition site

The participating students expressed their honors in representing the university and the department of FITM, and were pleased to win first

prize on behalf on the university. They said:“We are extremely grateful for the university's encouragement and everyone's support. We would like to especially express our gratitude to Mr. Joel Lo Ribeiro for his guidance. We will use this experience as motivation for future

improvement, and continue to represent the university in more upcoming competitions.”

Group photo of students from the winning team

Apart from the continuation of the innovative teaching approaches in recent years, FITM also focuses on developing students' creativity

in solving the existing issues in the tourism industry. In this competition, the students demonstrated their potential contributions to the

sustainable development sector, and have thoroughly applied their theoretical knowledge from the classroom to practical scenarios.

Congratulations to the students again for this historic achievement, and the faculty wishes you all the best in future competitions!