CHENGDU is now striving to become a global innovation center in line with the national strategy of mass entrepreneurship and innovation.

More than 700 people start up their own businesses in Chengdu on average every day since the implementation of Tianfu Entrepreneurship Action Plan last year.

Zhang Fuhai is one of them. He is still a firm believer in China’s private education industry. As he sees it, people will always be willing to embrace new forms of learning and new educational experiences.

Despite competition from some big names like NASDAQ-listed New Oriental Education & Technology Group, which currently controls some 30 percent of China’s private education industry, Zhang still sees plenty room in the market for his own services.

Zhang opened an online company, Maizi Education, with his partner Zhang Linghua in 2012. With about a dozen staff members, the company set up an outlet in the Chuangyechang incubator, backed by the Chengdu Tianfu Software Park. His aim was to build a virtual campus that could offer students tailor-made courses online at an affordable cost.

The core of Zhang’s business is the Learning Process System he and his team developed. With this system, Maizi Education is able to track learner behaviors and weaknesses. Maizi students can also come together in an online student center, where they can exchange ideas and build a stimulating learning environment together.

“We are now providing a whole ecosystem to support learning behavior. We’re not banking on learners’ self-control or teachers’ quality as heavily as traditional education institutions,” Zhang said.

“When a student finishes class at Maizi Education, the student will get a learning results report. Qualified students will be introduced to companies we’ve tie-up with, and perhaps hop to a new job with their new skills.”

The success of Zhang’s company has earned him a spot on the incubator’s top floor, where more than 200 employees provide 14 online classes focused mainly in information technology, product design and computer programing. One of its users is a 19-year-old US student, who expected the Python programming class will help him in the university courses.

But students keen to brush up on their IT skills aren’t the only ones taking notice of Maizi. The company pulled in some 100 million yuan (US$14.9 million) in B-round fundraising in November. Looking ahead, Zhang hopes to go public in another four or five years.

“We are lucky that we started in Chengdu, since it’s a prime land for start-ups. You will get lost in big cities like Beijing ... but won’t happen in Chengdu. Here is a place where you can settle down with your products.”

You You, another entrepreneur, has also found a home at Chuangyechang.

Co-partnered with Wang Shirui, a former oral medical doctorate candidate at Havard University, You joined Medlinker as chief operation officer.

The purpose of Medlinker is to share patient and case records online among its community of doctors. Since launching two years ago, the platform has attracted more than 200,000 doctors from 48 departments, who have come together and shared thoughts on hundreds of thousands of cases. They have collected nearly 600,000 medical cases that need further study.

“For example, if one of our doctors posted case details of a patient with intractable gastroesophageal reflux, we are able to invite top-class doctors from gastroenterology surgery department, digestive department and psychiatric department to join the discussion and then give comprehensive advice on treatment,” You said.

Due to the speciality of the community, Medlinker is more like a platform for academic exchange rather than an innovation project aiming for profit.

Medlinker received US$40 million from Internet giant Tecent and other investors in September 2015 in its latest fundraising. You said those funds have been spent on research and development, as well as the improvement of Medlinker’s user experience.

“Our next step is to organize all the cases doctors had posted, and create a clean and user-friendly case database,” said You, who believes these features will help the company form cooperations with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies in the future.

With 400 employees in 15 cities around China, Medlinker’s base of operations is still Chengdu, which You describes as a perfect place for entrepreneurs.

Maizi Education and Medlinker are two of about 200 start-ups located in Chengdu Tianfu Software Park, a cradle of the information technology industry in the western China city of Chengdu. The park is a key piece in local plans to develop the city into a technology center on par with Silicon Valley.

The park’s Chuangyechang incubator has already cultivated successful cases like picture-taking app Camera360, and Nibiru, a mobile game publisher with more than 50 million players.

In the 3.7 million square meters of park, start-ups can enjoy free office space, free recruitment services for engineers, and public discussion area like Inspiration Cafe.

“Our role is not about making profits, but to establish an ecosystem for the industry and fulfill all the functions the area needs,” said Cai Wei, deputy general manager at Tianfu Software Park.

The park itself offers 100 million yuan in total subsidies annually to early stage start-ups, and 1 billion yuan in subsidies overall, according to Cai. Venture capitalists such as IDG Capitals and Zhen Fund have also flocked into the park in search of China’s next hot tech leader.

Since its official operation in 2005, the park is one of the fastest-growing professional software parks in China. It’s also home to more than 400 domestic and international companies, including big names like IBM, SAP, NEC, Cisco and Dell. Forty percent of the tenants are foreign-funded companies and 33 of them are Fortune Global 500 companies.

“The total revenue of the software industry in Chengdu rose 12.2 percent to 205.4 billion yuan in 2015, contributing to Chengdu’s image as China’s software city,” said Wang Feng, director of the software and information services division at Chengdu Economy and Informatization Commission.

“We estimate whole-year revenue for the city’s software industry will grow 14 to 15 percent this year, and more companies will eye international markets for business expansion.”