New technology has time to shine at innovators' festival
Visitors look at a dancing robot at the innovators' festival on Friday.
A festival kicked off in Shanghai on Friday for innovators to showcase their creative work during celebration of this year’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Week from Friday to Monday.
At the China (Shanghai) Practicing Base for Entrepreneurs in Yangpu District, about 20 activities, including lectures, exhibitions, competitions, performances, training camps and classes on entrepreneurship attracted hundreds of visitors.
At one exhibition, visitors took turns checking out robots that can answer questions and dance to music, a huge balloon which let visitors travel above famous Chinese tourist attractions using virtual-reality technology, and an intelligent board that can help teach the game Go.
Ten teams who won the Shanghai session of the third national “China Innovation Wing” competition in August were presented with awards during the festival. Four of them, including Fan Deng Readers’ Club, an app aiming to promote reading among the public, and Squirrel AI, an online and offline K12 education platform, will represent Shanghai in the national final to be held in Henan Province.
The competition attracted 1,578 teams from Shanghai, 96 of whom made it into the city final.
The Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security Bureau also honored 16 incubators, including Krspace, A7space and Xnode for their outstanding performance in helping companies develop and thus creating jobs. Last year, nine incubators were honored.
Shanghai now has more than 600 incubators, with over 90 percent run by non-governmental sectors, serving over 380,000 new entrepreneurs.
A forum was also held to discuss how to improve integrated entrepreneurial services in the Yangtze River Delta.
A survey by the bureau showed that 12.6 percent of local residents, aged from 16 to 64, were active in starting up businesses last year, compared to 4.9 percent in 2005.
Yang Yonghua, deputy director of the city’s employment promotion center, said that Shanghai’s healthy economy — with plenty of new technology and new business models, as well as an improved business environment and favorable policies — has provided fertile ground for startups.
A board that can teach kids how to play Go.
Visitors "travel" to famous tourism attractions all over the country via a balloon with VR technology.
