Peking University, April 24, 2013: Perhaps no other place is more appropriate than Zhongguancun, an iconic high-tech area in Beijing and otherwise known as Chinese Silicon Valley, to host the inaugural NTC Zhongguancun Forum on Technopreneurship, a buzz word that combines technology and entrepreneurship.

The forum, themed “Driving Sustainable Economic Growth: Science, Innovation and Technopreneurship,” was held at Zhongguanyuan Global Village, PKU on April 20 by Industrial Technology Research Institute of PKU (affiliated with Office of Science & Technology, PKU), Nanyang Technopreneurship Center (NTC) of Nangyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore and China Society for the Promotion of Science and Technology Commercialization. There were two sub-forums, namely “Driving Technopreneurship through Innovation” and “Opportunities and Challenges in the Growth of S&T Industries.”

A group of elite guests, including investors, scholars and PKU and NTU leaders joined the chiefs of the three organizers to attend the forum and gave keynote speeches. Such a high-profile event attracted extensive media reports and a full live coverage by People.com.cn.

Professor Xu Guanlin, honorary president of NTU, Singapore delivered a speech on “How China Can Lead Global Economy.” According to him, the 21st century will bring enormous opportunities of development for Asian countries. An era of global massive innovation emergence has come, in which scientific and technological innovation is doomed to become the most revolutionary force in economic and social development, with unprecedented incorporating scale, depth and speed. This trend makes it clear that scientific and technological innovation is not only a powerful weapon to cope with financial crisis, but also an inexhaustible driving force of lasting prosperity of economy.

Professor Chen Dongmin, director of Office of Science & Technology, PKU addressed on "Chinese Universities’ Responsibilities in Building an Innovative Country" in which he viewed innovation, entrepreneurship, and talents as the core issues in constructing a national innovation system, which were the fundamental driving forces in either upgrading traditional industries or supporting emerging industries. He put forward a pattern of cooperative innovation with enterprises dominating and universities supporting, which could be achieved in two channels: enterprises commercializing promising technologies patented by universities and universities cracking on advanced technical problems raised by enterprises. Due to the dearth of angel funding in China, he was convinced that it would be quite necessary to use government financial funds to incubate some preliminary scientific research achievements, but to be vigilant at the same time against vicious competitions by homogenous investments among local governments.

Professor Liu Wei, vice president of PKU pointed out that universities had always been the fertile soil for cultivating diverse ideas and innovating advanced technologies. Therefore, PKU would strive to make more contributions to the overall development of economics, politics, culture, society and ecosystem in China through incorporating resources of education and research in innovation and entrepreneurship, promoting commercialization of scientific and technological achievements and further involving in collaborative innovation with local government and enterprises.

During the forum, the three organizing parties signed a memorandum for collaboration, aiming to strengthen the communication and cooperation between China and Singapore in education and research of innovation and entrepreneurship, raise public awareness of the important role of entrepreneurship in national economy and encourage more events of this kind between the two societies.

Extended Reading

Written by: Chen Chuke
Edited by: Chen Long
Source: PKU News (Chinese)