The Global Grand Challenges Summit (GGCS) is a biennial event jointly organized by the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) of the UK and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) of the USA since 2013. The summit brings together world leaders, engineers and change-makers to collaborate and address the grand challenges facing our future world. The past few summits were held in Beijing (2015), Washington D.C. (2017) and London (2019), but the 2021 summit in China was disrupted by the pandemic.

One important part of the GGCS is the Student Pitch Competition preceding the official start of the Summit. University teams are invited to propose innovation or novel solutions to global challenges associated with the sub-themes of the Summit. Five teams from each country, (China, UK and US), compete against each other by presenting a 5-minute pitch to a panel of senior judges and other Summit participants. In the 2019 GGCS, the Hong Kong Team (part of the Chinese delegation) comprising 4 students from HKU and one student each from HKUST and CityU was awarded the first runner-up in the Competition https://innowings.engg.hku.hk/ggcs2019.

Looking ahead to the 6th GGCS (though details have yet been announced), the HKAES is expected to select a Hong Kong Joint University Team to participate in the student competition of the Summit. To facilitate this, the Academy, with the support of the Innovation and Technology Fund, is planning to organize the HKAES 2023-24 Pitch Competition on Grand Challenge Engineering Topics for University Students in Hong Kong. This competition provides undergraduate students from all majors, particularly those studying engineering and computer science, with the opportunity to compete for the honour to representing Hong Kong and Mainland China at the 6th GGCS.