City's ETown flexes entrepreneurship and innovation muscles

The Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known the Beijing ETown, located in Daxing district, recently demonstrated its innovation capability and achievements at the 2019 National Mass Innovation and Entrepreneurship Week.

The weeklong conference was held on June 13-19 in major Chinese cities such as Beijing, Zhejiang province's Hangzhou and Guangdong province's Shenzhen.

At the opening ceremony, local officials announced six pilot-plant bases had been approved to establish themselves in the area. They covered four pillar industries: biopharmaceuticals, intelligent manufacturing, new energy vehicles and new-generation information technology.

The development area will advance the construction of the bases and increase support services for pilot plants.

An exhibition of more than 500 high-tech products highlighted the Beijing ETown venue.

The cutting-edge technologies and applications from 10 universities and colleges and some 170 high-tech companies were displayed at the more than 6,000-square-meter exhibition area. They enabled visitors to learn more about internal links between the upstream and downstream technological enterprises.

The innovation achievements on display included a long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle, new energy vehicles, a water rescue robot and smart sports glasses featuring augmented reality technology, as well as the applications of artificial intelligence, big data and internet of things.

Another highlight of the week was an innovation and entrepreneurship competition.

The competition attracted more than 800 companies, 35 of which made it to the final round. It invited world-renowned universities, including Tsinghua University and Peking University, to participate in additional matches.

According to the local government, some 10 universities and research institutions, such as Tsinghua University and Beihang University, have reached cooperation agreements with Beijing ETown in fields of energy planning and internet strategy.

With the accelerated clustering of innovation elements, the Beijing development area has shown its innovation capability and vitality.

In the area, the number of invention patents owned per 10,000 people, a key index to measure a region's innovation capacities, was 350 last year. Local research institutions and companies developed 67 world-leading technologies and 65 breakthrough products in 2018.

Over the past five years, the Beijing ETown has developed more than 300 internationally leading products that filled the void in their respective industry. After 27 years of development, the area has established a firm industrial cluster. To date, it is home to more than 22,000 companies, including some 1,000 State-level high-tech enterprises, 51 of which bring in revenues ranging from 100 billion yuan ($14.52 billion) to 1 billion yuan.