Experts agree Shanghai's innovation system needs work

Experts from home and abroad gathered in Shanghai recently to attend a forum to discuss the development of a city innovation system and to reform talent training practices.

Participants of the event, held by Shanghai Overseas Returned Scholars Association, East China Normal University and New York University Shanghai, all agreed that development of innovation is based on innovative talent.

Yu Lizhong, chancellor of New York University Shanghai, said the fundamental task for universities was to cultivate talent, and that the most primary work of talent cultivation in university is to cultivate undergraduates.

“I hope education can be diversified as there is no single education mode that can fit all people and all industries,” he said. 

Piero Scaruffi, famous science and arts cross-disciplinary expert and math and computer scientist, pointed out that Silicon Valley was a wild land without technology 50 years ago, but innovation turned it into a place full of top companies, including Facebook, Apple, Uber and Airbnb.

He said the history of Silicon Valley was about how a group of "crazy" people have done some crazy things to do with science and technology. Though 99 percent of them failed, the 1 percent that succeed have changed the whole world.