Global Entrepreneurship Week China opened its 20th edition on November 10 at Chuantai Park on Shanghai's Fuxing Island, a former shipyard on the Huangpu River. Over five days, more than 50 events brought together over 1,500 entrepreneurs, more than 100 international guests and representatives from nearly 500 technology companies and investment firms.
The week was hosted by the Shanghai Technology Entrepreneurship Foundation for Graduates (EFG), GEW's official host in China, and co-organized with Yangpu Riverside Group and DoerLink. Each day focused on one of Shanghai's priority industries: future intelligence, future manufacturing and materials, future energy, future health, and angel investing and the space economy.
GEN on stage
Jonathan Ortmans, Founder and President of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, spoke at the opening ceremony. He also led a delegation of more than 20 international entrepreneurs and mentors from countries including the Republic of Korea, the United States, Chile, Germany, Egypt and New Zealand.
GEN Vice President Matt Smith moderated a roundtable titled "Innovation Without Borders: How Young Global Entrepreneurs Collaborate and Take Root." The panel included Bronwyn Bridges of PragmaClin (Canada), Madeleine Valderrama of Bruna.ai (Chile), Josef Suess of BlinkIn (Germany) and Okey Esse of Powerstove Energy (Nigeria), along with a Shanghai education technology founder. They talked about building companies across borders and putting down roots in new markets.
Twenty years of backing founders
This year also marks EFG's own 20th anniversary. As of September, the foundation had reviewed 17,889 applications and funded 5,001 projects with nearly RMB 1.3 billion, helping create about 30,000 jobs for university graduates. Early recipients include food delivery platform Ele.me and game developer miHoYo.
At the opening, nine companies were named 2026 Angel Fund Outstanding Eaglet Enterprises. The honorees include:
• a developer of robots that plant shrubs in desert environments
• a system that detects fire hazards while electric bicycles charge
• makers of AI-powered companion devices
In a "Time Dialogue," founders of companies EFG backed early on sat down with this year's honorees to talk about two decades of Chinese entrepreneurship. EFG and CVINFO also released the 2026 Angel Investors Top 30, now in its 13th year, which ranks early-stage investors on their fundraising, investment and exit performance.
Beyond the conference hall
• Fuxing Island Sci-Tech Incubation Conference: launched an international mentor group with experts from the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Egypt, Mexico, Indonesia and Switzerland
• Startup Grind residency: a 21-day program on the island for 40 founders, with themed weeks on AI applications, embodied AI and robotics, and frontier hardware
• Embodied AI training camp: robots served as guides on the island's streets and waterfront, testing how they navigate and interact with people
• Closing day: an Angel Fund Day of early-stage investor pitches and a sci-tech orienteering race on November 14
Learn more about GEW China at www.eweekchina.org.