Million-Yuan Prize Pool! The 6th National Smart Healthcare Innovation Competition Opens for Registration – Innovate Together in Harbin!

The "6th National Smart Healthcare Innovation Competition," initiated by the Joint Laboratory of Mobile Medical Education and China Mobile and co-organized by 40 national associations and societies, has alreadyNational registration officially opens on April 21, healthcare institutions, technology companies, and innovation enterprises involved in smart healthcare innovation across China are welcome to visit the official website of the competition（shic.org.cn）Register for the competition.

Actively responding to the national policy guidance of “Healthy China” and “Digital China,” the competition leverages its role as an innovation driver to stimulate innovative vitality, enhance innovation awareness, and popularize and promote innovative achievements. It explores new models of “training through competition,” “learning through competition,” and “application through competition,” while actively building an innovation-driven service platform for smart healthcare that integrates industry, academia, research, finance, services, and end-users. This initiative aims to achieve major breakthroughs in digital technology innovation within the medical and health sector, ensuring global leadership in application innovation.

The finals for the 30 provincial and municipal divisions of this competition will be held separately. The registration deadline is June 30, with the provincial and municipal division finals scheduled from June 20 to July 30. The National Grand Finals are tentatively scheduled for late September in Harbin, supported by a RMB 1 million prize fund provided by the Harbin Municipal People’s Government. The event will bring together over 200 competing teams, comprising more than 1,000 members from hospitals, enterprises, and research institutions; leaders and experts from the 30 regional divisions and 40 co-organizing entities; over 100 expert judges; representatives from investment and financing institutions; and leaders from innovative enterprises.

The 6th National Smart Healthcare Innovation Competition has, for the first time, brought together 40 provincial and municipal associations and societies to jointly host 30 competition zones. From registration and submission to zonal finals and the grand final, the competition will engage industry elites involved in clinical practice, medical technology, management, nursing, enterprise operations, and product technology development in smart healthcare across 90% of China’s provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. Since its inception five years ago, the competition has actively attracted more than 3,000 project teams, over 10,000 hospitals and enterprises, and more than 50,000 professionals in healthcare technology, management, and research. Cumulative media exposure has exceeded 100 million impressions, fundamentally establishing a new landscape characterized by “Healthcare Innovation Rising, Nationwide Participation.”

In the 5th National Smart Healthcare Innovation Competition, 59% of the projects shortlisted for the grand finals in the Application Innovation track fell under the themes of health and medical big data, artificial intelligence, smart hospitals, and hospital information management. In the Technological Innovation track, more than 69% of the shortlisted projects involved areas such as the internet, medical cloud, big data, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), and intelligent terminals. Statistics show that among the first-prize-winning projects in the 5th competition, 69% featured applications of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and digitalization, while this figure stood at 53% for second-prize winners. Furthermore, 48% of the projects winning first or second prizes were submitted by teams focused on clinical and technological application innovation. This fully demonstrates the consistent recognition by participating teams, expert judges, and innovative enterprises regarding the development trends of emerging technologies and application innovation. It also further illustrates that exchanges throughout all stages of the competition—from project development and pre-competition training to regional finals and the grand finals—have promoted deeper integration and innovative applications of emerging technologies in healthcare.

The competition is broadly categorized into four tracks: Application Innovation, Technological Innovation, Healthcare Information Technology Application Innovation, and Primary Healthcare.

Application Innovation Track:Project teams are invited to register for the competition, focusing on innovative smart healthcare applications led by medical and health institutions. The competition seeks projects that demonstrate conceptual, model, and application innovations, wherein medical and health institutions effectively address pain points in smart healthcare scenarios—such as information management, clinical research, and pharmaceutical, nursing, and technical services—through the practical exploration and implementation of digital and intelligent technologies and products.

Technological Innovation Track:Open to project teams from enterprises and technical teams that prioritize enterprise-led technological and product innovation. The competition primarily focuses on innovative projects featuring outstanding products, technologies, and solutions that leverage emerging technologies—such as cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), mobile internet, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and 5G in healthcare—as well as the healthcare metaverse, digital diagnostics, digital therapeutics, and digital twins—to promote the intelligent development of the medical health industry and services.

Medical IT Innovation Track:Projects and solutions for the domestic substitution and innovation of technologies and products related to IT application innovation in healthcare and new infrastructure.

Grassroots Innovation Track:Innovative projects for primary healthcare institutions (below Tier III) in information management and digital health applications. Encourage primary healthcare IT teams to participate in research and innovation on emerging technology applications.

The national finals series of this competition will be held byCo-hosted by the Harbin Municipal People’s Government, the Health Commission of Heilongjiang Province, the Heilongjiang Association for Science and Technology, and the China Mobile Joint Laboratory of Mobile Medical Education under the Ministry of Education; organized by China Association for Science and Technology New Technology Development Center Co., Ltd., the Harbin Municipal Health Commission, Harbin New Area, the Harbin Association for Science and Technology, and the Internet Medical and Health Industry Alliance.Strive to advance the integrated development goals of translating achievements from digital healthcare technology and application innovation projects into industrial implementation and economic growth. Organize technical and application exchange activities such as the “Second National Healthcare Information Innovation Conference” and the “Smart Healthcare Special Session of ‘Science and Technology Innovation China’ Technology Roadshow,” as well as industry and economic cooperation initiatives related to smart healthcare innovation, including the “Digital Health Industry Cooperation and Exchange Dialogue,” “Innovation and Entrepreneurship Roadshows,” academician exchanges on digital health, the establishment of an Industry-Finance Cooperation Alliance, and the joint development of a “Smart Healthcare Innovation Demonstration Base.”

The National Smart Healthcare Innovation Competition has been successfully held for five editions. Committed to promoting and showcasing innovative achievements, and aiming to facilitate exchange, learning, and talent development in smart healthcare, the competition strives to build a new type of service platform for smart healthcare innovation. By advancing achievement exchanges and showcases, innovation centers, demonstration bases, industry-finance cooperation, and mentorship programs, it continuously gathers industry experts in technology application and innovation talents. It delves deeply into the models and types of smart healthcare competitions, exploring new paradigms for integrating education with industry and fostering industry-finance collaboration that link technology and talent with industrial and economic development. This initiative empowers the medical and health industry and its growth, serves the advancement of industry professionals and technologies, and contributes innovative wisdom to the Healthy China initiative.