Digital entrepreneurs and innovators in focus

Businesses sign agreements for cooperation with award winners during the Shanxi University Innovation and Entrepreneurship Contest in the Digital Economy. [Photo provided to China Daily]

From concept to action, from action to commercialization, an innovation and entrepreneurship contest, which concluded in Shanxi in September, has drawn the attention of the business community and raised enthusiasm among university students and graduates.

With a focus on digital and intelligent technologies and applications, the first Shanxi University Innovation and Entrepreneurship Contest in the Digital Economy concluded on Sept 16 in the Shanxi Data Traffic Ecology Park in Taiyuan.

The event, starting from June, attracted more than 100,000 students from nearly 60 universities and colleges nationwide to attend. Representatives for hundreds of enterprises were present at the final competition and award ceremony.

A team from North University of China, based in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, were named as winners for their intelligent non-invasive blood glucose meter.

A member of the team said one of his senior family members has diabetes. He observed that the conventional meter involves collecting blood from the finger, which is painful and runs the risk of infection. So he and his several schoolmates decided to invent a non-invasive meter.

The new meter, integrating near-infrared spectroscopy, metabolic heat conformation and digital analysis technologies, features an accuracy 10 percent higher than the conventional versions, and greater convenience for patients.

Digital technology applications, especially in the new media sector, were a highlight of the event and attracted great interest from the business community.

A new media production team called Wusuowei was another award winner at the event for its short videos featuring the cultural and tourist attractions of Shanxi. Its short video series with the Douyin hashtag of "very young, very Shanxi" have generated more than 110 million views since June.

On the sideline of the award ceremony, Zhao Shiquan, chairman of Lecuntao Network, a rural e-commerce company in Shanxi, talked with several award-winning teams in the livestreaming and video-producing sectors regarding possible partnerships.

Ma Hongbin, a professor from Tsinghua University, said at the event that "the digital economy is not only a driving force for high-quality growth, but also an area with great potential for entrepreneurship".

In Shanxi, the digital economy had a scale worth about 568.8 billion yuan ($77.7 billion) in 2022, growing 11.5 percent from the previous year. This growth rate ranked the province 11th nationwide.

The booming growth of Shanxi's digital economy is also evidenced in its rapidly developing infrastructure, including 85,000 5G base stations, a supercomputing center in Taiyuan and a number of dedicated industrial parks throughout the province.

The Shanxi Data Traffic Ecology Park is one of the crucial development zones for the digital economy. Since it began operation in January 2021, it has attracted more than 600 enterprises to settle, offering jobs to more than 9,000 people, according to He Han, board chairman of the park.

"A talent pool is crucial for the development of the digital economy," He said. "We hope the data traffic park can offer a venue for the innovative-minded and enterprising university graduates to develop their careers and start their businesses."

Li Lian contributed to this story.