The finals of the 19th "Challenge Cup" National Undergraduate Extracurricular Academic and Technological Works Competition are held at Nanjing University. [Photo/Nanjing University]

The finals of the 19th "Challenge Cup" National Undergraduate Extracurricular Academic and Technological Works Competition were recently held at Nanjing University.

This year's competition attracted over 3 million students from more than 2,700 universities across China, submitting more than 400,000 projects. After multiple stages of review, 1,283 projects from 472 universities made it into the final round.

In addition to the competition itself, this year's event integrated a range of activities designed to accelerate project development and talent cultivation, including a recruitment session and briefings on youth-friendly cities and talent policies.

To further support commercialization, the competition introduced a project and talent database and created a special award for technological application. During the event, more than 60 projects reached preliminary cooperation or transformation agreements in fields such as artificial intelligence, biomedicine, and new materials.

A team from Southwest Jiaotong University said that several organizations expressed an intent to adopt their technology. Suzhou Industrial Park agreed on-site to provide 300,000 yuan ($42,000) in initial support.

Students pose for a photo behind a competition installation. [Photo/Nanjing University]

The recruitment fair also drew strong engagement, with 120 companies offering more than 7,000 job and internship opportunities. Over 3,000 resumes were submitted, with more than 600 preliminary employment matches made.