A global Luxury group, Kering manages the development of a series of renowned Houses in Fashion, Leather Goods and Jewelry: Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Brioni, Boucheron, Pomellato, DoDo, Qeelin, Ginori 1735, as well as Kering Eyewear and Kering Beauté. By placing creativity at the heart of its strategy, Kering enables its Houses to set new limits in terms of their creative expression while crafting tomorrow’s Luxury in a sustainable and responsible way. We capture these beliefs in our signature: “Empowering Imagination”. In 2023, Kering had 49,000 employees and revenue of €19.6 billion.

• We are looking for innovative solutions that are in the early stages and focus on the water positive impact.

• The jury group is composed of industry leaders in fashion, luxury, business, academia, sustainability and innovation. Kering Generation Award also has an advisory committee composed of global leaders in business and sustainable development. With the help of the Advisory Committee, shortlisted companies will be selected based on six selection criteria: Innovation, Tech Maturity, Potential for Commercial Success, Relevance to Theme, Social and Environmental Impact, and Relevance to Fashion.

• Aiming to empower young entrepreneurs, this edition's awards, in addition to the applications within the social sphere, will for the first time cooperate with Tsinghua x-lab, expanding the cooperation of “industry, academia, research”. Tsinghua x-lab, as an educational platform for discovering and cultivating Tsinghua University's “Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship” talents, has gathered many hard science and technology startups and innovative talents from Tsinghua University. As a strategic partner for the Campus Track of the 4th Kering Generation Award China, Tsinghua x-lab relies on the scientific research talents of Tsinghua University, and radiates to key universities across China, actively searching for innovative projects that have outstanding achievements in this theme area as well as advocating the participation of scientific research teams and academic experts to create a broad social impact.

• A bootcamp will be customized for the top 10 finalists to further refine their innovative solutions. Meanwhile, the final “Pitch Day” will then be held at Tsinghua University, where participants will present their entrepreneurial ideas and progress to the jury. Ultimately, the jury will decide on three winning companies.

Plug and Play is one of the world's oldest technology incubators with the widest coverage of regions and industries, and is also a globally recognized technology innovation ecological platform.

Plug and Play originated in Silicon Valley, has more than 60 innovation centers around the world, has more than 20 years of experience in technology investment, industrial technology services, technology incubation. The company has successfully incubated Google, invested in PayPal, Dropbox and other technology giants, and invested in more than 200 science and technology companies around the world every year.

Plug and Play is committed to finding, incubating, accelerating, investing in, and promoting hard technology startups, as well as carrying out open innovation cooperation based on their innovation needs and cultural ecology with more than 500 industry leader companies. In 2016, with the expansion of its global business, Plug and Play China was established, and innovation centers were set up in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Hefei, Changzhou. At present, Plug and Play China has built a leading one-stop platform for technology investment, innovation services and incubation, and carries out three types of innovative businesses: early-stage technology investment, innovation services (enterprise innovation, city innovation, international cooperation), and incubation of innovation space.