Press Releases

MOE press conference kicks off finals of 7th “Internet+” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition

Source: www.moe.gov.cn
2021-10-12

On October 9, the MOE held a press conference to present the expected highlights of the finals of 7th China International College Students “Internet+” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, scheduled on October 12 in Nanchang University. Wu Yan, Director of the Department of Higher Education under the Ministry of Education, Zhou Chuangbing, President of Nanchang University, Wu Xiaobo, Professor of Zhejiang University, and Song Zhe, winner of the 6th "Internet+" Competition, attended the meeting.

Extensive participation and a focus on college students

The event is to be held both online and offline, under the theme “Brave, Creative as I Can Be”. Despite the challenges of COVID-19 restrictions, it attracted the participation of more than 9.56 million students from 4,347 colleges and universities in 117 countries and territories, with a total of 2.28 million projects involved. Specifically, in the higher education category, 15,611 participants from 1,263 HEIs, including almost all of the world’s top 100 universities, have signed up for the competition, proposing 5,531 projects. In the vocational education category, 3.3 million participants from 2,116 polytechnic colleges registered for the competition with over 860,000 projects.

For this year’s competition, the organizer has specially created an “undergraduate creativity” category to provide more opportunities for college students, with the expectation that more “future stars” of innovation and entrepreneurship could stand out. The age limit of competition participants is 35 years old.

Boosting entrepreneurship and industry-university collaboration

This event is designed to boost the enthusiasm of college students for innovation and entrepreneurship, and facilitate the adoption of creative ideas and projects. In the previous six competitions, a total of more than 400 award-winning projects created employment opportunities for some 500, 000 people.

This year, the organizer has added an “industry and business proposition” category, which has caught the attention of major home-grown businesses, such as Huawei, Tencent, JD, ByteDance and China Southern Airlines. In total, 59,454 participants from 1024 universities are going to compete in this category with 10,466 projects.

By serving as a bridge between innovators and businesses, this category will effectively fast-track the commercialization of viable business propositions, and application of technological innovations and achievements.

Supporting educational reforms

The Competition also serves as a major forum for creating a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in HEIs, as part of the ongoing educational reforms in China. It also offers an opportunity to explore more effective ways to produce market-ready, employable graduates. According to Wu Yan, the competition has brought about a paradigm shift in the way higher education is delivered.

Currently, innovation and entrepreneurship education courses are offered in most HEIs nationwide, with more than 4,000 specialized books in use. Industry experts are being hired to teach specialized courses, with some 35,000 working fulltime, and 139,000 working as parttime instructors at HEIs.