Associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree holders, as well as students from technician colleges who graduated after January 1, 2022, are eligible to register.

The Department of Education of Hunan Province held a press briefing on September 29, 2026. It announced that the registration for the 3rd "Golden Seed Cup" College Student Entrepreneurship Competition is now officially open.  Building on the success of the previous two editions, this year's competition has been fully upgraded: the eligibility has been relaxed  from within three years of graduation to within five years of graduation; AI agents have been introduced into the online review process; and a "1+4" institutional framework has been simultaneously released, extending an invitation to college students worldwide.

It was learned that the previous two "Golden Seed Cup" competitions achieved remarkable results. Among them, the second edition attracted 24,995 projects of 43,600 college students from 725 universities at home and abroad. By the end of August 2026, the number of projects implemented within Hunan Province had increased from 950 to 3,735. Twenty-eight projects passed the investment decisions of the college student fund and received financing of 13.85 million CNY. Drawing on the experience of the previous two editions, the third competition focuses on improving efficiency in organizational management and post-competition services.

In terms of eligibility, the competition is open to individual college students or teams who are starting a business or have already founded an enterprise, with no restrictions on region, household registration, or nationality. This year's competition further lowers the threshold, adjusting the eligibility from within three years of graduation in the previous edition to within five years. This includes associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree holders, as well as students from technician colleges who graduated after January 1, 2022.

There are multiple upgrading highlights of this competition:

Firstly, the implementation orientation is more distinct. A five-party coordinated mechanism involving "cities/prefecture, industrial parks, enterprises, universities, and investment institutions" has been established, and an implementation transformation award has also been established. Every two years, five high-quality enterprises registered and operating in Hunan will be selected, each receiving one million CNY in support.

Secondly, the evaluation mechanism is more professional. AI agents have been introduced for the first time in online review, and the comprehensive score is calculated according to a weight ratio of 7:3 between experts' and AI agents' evaluations.

Thirdly, the institutional system is more complete. A "1+4" institutional framework has been established with the "Management Measures for the 'Golden Seed Cup' College Student Entrepreneurship Competition" as the core and multiple special supporting systems. The framework covers evaluation work management, supervision management, establishment of the implementation transformation award, and selection of the outstanding organization award.

Among them, the supervision management measures clarify the establishment of an independent discipline supervision committee to carry out full-process embedded supervision over key steps such as expert selection, review scoring, and project advancement.

The registration deadline for the competition is December 31, 2026. Subsequently, activities such as qualification review, online review, on-site finals, and award and matchmaking will be carried out in sequence. The on-site finals will be held in early May 2027.

This article is from the Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Yu Jiangjiang

Chinese source: Hunan Daily