More than 700 government officials, entrepreneurs and investors attended a ceremony to mark the launch of the 2017 Zhongguancun International Startup Festival & Shengjing Global Innovation Awards on Saturday in Beijing.

The event was organized by Shengjing 360.com, an innovation and startup service platform, under the direction of the Zhongguancun Science Park Administrative Committee and the government of Beijing's Haidian district.

The awards were initiated by Shengjing 360 in 2015 to discover and encourage innovative projects and startup teams, especially in China, the United States, Israel and Germany.

Now, the organizer wants to turn the awards into an international brand and platform, and has joined hands with global organizations to discover, nurture and invest in promising startups.

This year's awards will focus on health, frontier technologies, new energy and materials and entertainment.

In order to choose the winners, more than 100 global investment firms will nominate eight to 10 startups from various industries for the primary selection process. Then, the nominees will be voted onto a list of 50 finalists.

The judges including famous investors will then decide the top 20 startups in June, and in August, an awards ceremony with the winners, investors, government representatives and industry leaders, will be held in Beijing.

Peng Zhiqiang, the co-founder and chairman of Shengjing 360, said that the purpose of the awards is not to select a winner, but to encourage the innovative spirit.

When more people choose to start businesses, great innovation and companies will come about, he added.

Each of the previous events individually drew more than 3,000 global startups to participate.

Many projects, such as education platform VIPKID benefitted from the event.

Shengjing 360 as well as its partner venture capitalists will make investments in the winning companies, according to the organizer.