Startup News Weekly Digest - February 22th 2016

Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund Unveils Hong Kong Internship Program

Followed by exciting news from Alibaba, Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund unveiled details of its Hong Kong Internship Program. Qualifies college students will have the chance to work for 6-12 months at Alibaba Group’s headquarters in Hangzhou or in the Guangzhou office. The program is open to full-time students in their Year 3 and Year 4as well as master degree, study in fields including engineer, web design, mobile app development, product development, finance, human resources and copywriting.
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Apple refuses to unlock an iPhone for the FBI

It was a pretty intense week for Apple, as the FBI obtained a court order to force the company to unlock an iPhone owned by a shooter involved in the San Bernardino attack last year.
The iPhone in question, a 5C, is locked with a four-digit passcode and has a feature enabled that wipes the device if the wrong code is typed in ten times. After exhausting all its options, the FBI has ordered Apple to create a custom piece of software to bypass the lock restriction so that it can break into the device -- but Apple has refused.
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Hong Kong online clothes retailer Grana raises $3.5m funding

Hong Kong-based online clothing retailer Grana has raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by Golden Gate Ventures, (GGV) taking its total seed funding to $6 million.
MindWorks Ventures and Bluebell Group also participated in the round, Grana said in a release.
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Apple Pay’s first day in China: thousands of cards added each minute

Talking about China, we would also like to mention that the Apple Pay hit China on Feb 18, all UnionPay cards are able to connect with Apple Pay. It was seeing rates of up to 80,000 cards added each minute in China at the first day of its launching. However, questions about if Apple Pay can compete with Alipay and WeChat, maybe only time will tell.
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Policy Address - Innovation and Technology

Wrap up today’s news round with the Policy Address 2016. The Hong Kong government will continue support the Hong Kong Startup Ecosystem, promoting innovation and technology development.
To further encourage Universities in Hong Kong to carry out more mid-stream applied research projects, the Government will earmark $2 billion to the ITB. Investment income generated from the allocation will be used to fund research undertaken by the institutions.
The Cyberport will increase the incubation scheme quotas and establish new clusters for areas such as financial technology and e-commerce to meet the latest development of the industry and the market.
The Government will also increase the provision of facilities like Smart-Space small offices and workstations by 50%
The Cyberport will allocate $200 million to launch a Cyberport Macro Fund for investment in its ICT start-ups
The Government will set aside $2 billion to set up an Innovation and Technology Venture Fund for co-investing with private venture capital funds
The Government will set aside $500 million to set up an Innovation and Technology Fund for Better Living to finance projects that make use of innovation and technology to improve our daily life.

So there you have it, what is going on and what will happen in Hong Kong.
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Chinese bank's $1.3bn offering rekindles Hong Kong IPO market A Chinese bank is breathing life back into Hong Kong's initial public offering market...