About Harvard College China Forum

Founded in 1997, Harvard China Forum is North America’s leading and longest-running student-run conference on China. Dedicated to a constructive dialogue on the challenges, trends, and issues affecting China, the forum aims to engage leaders in business, academia, and politics in discourse that will offer insights and generate new ideas.

2019 Harvard College China Forum

Time: April 12-14, 2019

Location: Harvard University

Panel Topics: Finance, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Arts, Culture, Entertainment, International Relations & Development, Philanthropy, Consumer & Retail, Pharmaceuticals

Harvard College China Forum Pitch Competition

Since its founding in 2015, Pitch Competition has served as a platform for founders and startups interested in the China market to showcase their ideas and raise funding. It has also allowed professional judges to hear the ideas of young innovators and discuss the future of investing with their peers. Over the past three years, the pitch competition has received over 200 business plans on average and selected eight teams to enter the final round each year.

In 2018, the three finalist teams received a total of $95,000 as cash prize. Out of the three, XtalPi, which provides accurate predictions on the physiochemical and pharmaceutical properties of small-molecule candidates for drug design using cloud computing and big data, has received 5 million dollars from Tencent and other investors in the Series Pre-A round funding. BrainCo, which was the winner of the 2015 pitch competition and focuses on brain technology, has received 5.4 million of investment. The annual forum typically takes place every April in Boston. Over a thousand delegates and nearly a hundred speakers attended the forum in 2018, making it the largest of its kind.