About Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund
The Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund (AEF) is a not-for-profit initiative launched by Alibaba Group in 2015. AEF’s mission is to help Hong Kong and Taiwan-based entrepreneurs and young people realize their dreams and visions for their businesses and communities.
Passionate about fostering the entrepreneurial spirit amongst young people, AEF established in Hong Kong a HK$1 billion fund and in Taiwan a NT$10 billion fund to support entrepreneurs in both markets.
Use Case
AEF hosts JUMPSTARTER, an annual physical pitch competition where finalists from around the world fly to Hong Kong to present their ideas to a panel of judges.
With the emergence of the coronavirus and the potential safety concerns, AEF made the decision less than two weeks before the scheduled event to move the February 2020 competition to a virtual environment and leverage live video streaming.
The AEF event team was faced with the challenge of finding a partner capable of live streaming out of China that could also simultaneously handle multiple video and webcam feeds for the finalists and judges to communicate in real time.
The solution? Notified’s Virtual Event platform featuring Studio webcasting.
Approach
For the first time, the JUMPSTARTER global pitch competition - the world’s largest online pitch contest - went online and was livestreamed Feb. 11-12, 2020. This let AEF successfully bring their audience together, without risking health and safety.
40 finalists from around the globe participated online from their respective locations. Each finalist pitched judges on Feb. 11 and the top five winners were announced on Feb. 12.
Notified’s Virtual Event solution allowed the AEF team to create a custom-branded environment with different spaces, including a lobby with a welcome video, a section to view each finalist, a “Meet Our Judges” space and linking to a voting area for top startups on the JUMPSTARTER website.
Notified's Studio webcasting technology allowed the pitches to be broadcast in real time and viewed around the world across desktop and mobile devices.
Results:
- 20,000 fans and supporters from 100 countries and regions participating online
- 58 hours of streaming video content through Studio webcasting platform
- 544 metric tons of carbon saved (equal to avg. car running for 160 years)
“It was a pleasure working with the Notified team. This was a world-class service with very impressive results. We received very positive feedback from our partners and users about the Virtual Event platform!”
-Uta Lam Digital and Social Media Manager Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund