Carrying on the vision of showing the world, ‘China is becoming bigger than Silicon Valley, both as a hotbed for innovations of global impact & as a magnet for entrepreneurs’, the 8thAnnual CHINICT conference will be held in Beijing over May 24th and 25th 2012.  We are indeed gearing up for this year’s tech conference season!

To inspire people in China to make their dreams happen and highlight the power of China’s tech scene to the world, CHINICT is once again bringing an impressive array of entrepreneurs with global companies.  Here are some you can expect to see:

From China

  • Robin Li, CEO of Baidu
  • Richard Peng, VP M&A of Tencent
  • Herman Yu, CFO Sina
  • Cheng Binghao, CEO of Kaixin001
  • James Hsu, Co-Founder of Mochi Media

From America

  • Eduardo Saverin, Co-Founder of Facebook
  • Dave McClure, Founder of 500Startups
  • Naval Ravikant, CEO of AngelList
  • Net Jacobsson, CEO of Ginger
  • Tim Draper, Co-Founder of DFJ

To cater to entrepreneurs at different stages of their life cycle, there are three sections: Rising Stars, Protégés and  Hackathon.

Rising Stars is a competition to award the best up and coming tech companies with an established brand name and market presence across various categories such as mobile OS, Anti-virus, social networking, online video and gaming. Some of the past winners include Qihoo, Kaixin001, iQiyi, LinkedIn, Tianji, Youku and Playfish.

The Protégés program is strictly targeted at recently founded early stage companies with limited angel money, as well as an existing team, product and buzz – whose goal is to raise a series A round of funding during CHINICT or shortly after. Around 15 startups will be selected to pitch a high level panel of judges including:

  • Facebook’s co-founder Eduardo Saverin.
  • 500Startups’ founder Dave McClure.
  • Qunar’s founder Fritz Demopoulos.
  • Israeli’s legendary investor Yossi Vardi.
  • DFJ’s co-founder Tim Draper.
  • AngelList’s founder Naval Ravikant.

To impress the judges, each startup will have 5 minutes pitching time followed by 5 minutes of Q&A. The pitch must address the company and its product or service, target market and unique selling proposition, team, how much has already been invested and how much series A investment needed. Founder Franck Nazikan has an amibitous goal of getting at least 80% of the start-ups funded as a result of the Protégés program

Similar to last year’s TechCrunch Beijing Hackathon, CHINICT will allow programmers and entrepreneurs to hack a product over May 23-25th. A selection of impressive products and teams will win the chance to pitch at the Protégés program for Angel funding.

If CHINICT, sounds like a cool conference to attend, here are the details:

When: May 24-5th (Thursday and Friday)

Where: Beijing, Tsinghua Science Park

Cost: €1,995 or save €195 and pay €1,800  with our special discount code (CHINICTTechNode2012)

Buy here: Book tickets here