On the morning of Sept. 15, the launch ceremony for the 3rd Beihang Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition (BHIEC) Global took place at Beihang’s Zhizhen Building.
Yu Jun, Party Secretary of Haidian District, Zhao Gang, Deputy Party Secretary of Beihang, Xia Wei, President of Beihang Entrepreneur Club and Chairman of Beihang Investment Co., Ltd. delivered addresses and announced the start of the competition together. More than 200 participators attended the ceremony.
Yu Jun (Middle), Zhao Gang (Right), Xia Wei (Left) launched the competition together
In his speech, Yu Jun pointed out that 2019 marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Public of China. It will be an era of securing a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects as well as an era for Haidian District to refocus attention on entrepreneurship development. According to Yu Jun, in response to the requirements of the central government, the administrative division of Haidian District is committed to building a high-quality innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, improving innovation capability, boosting efficiency in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements and vigorously developing home-made core technologies.
Yu Jun spoke highly of Beihang’s efforts in talent cultivation and scientific innovation. He noted that Beihang Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition enjoyed a good reputation of fast development, high level and wide scope. He hoped that universities or venture capital firms located at Haidian District like Beihang can further support the innovation development of the district, gather strength of alumni network, promote transformation and industrialization of scientific and technological achievements in the district and contribute to China’s development towards a country of innovators.
Yu Jun, Party Secretary of Haidian District, spoke at the ceremony
Zhao Gang stressed in his speech that innovation marks the core of Beihang spirits. In the course of Beihang’s 67-year history, generations of Beihang members, who bear in mind the aspiration of “serving the country by dedicating to the field of Air & Space”, have conducted numerous innovative researches on academic frontiers that meet the major needs of the country and set many No.1 records nationwide or globally.
In recent years, Beihang has vigorously facilitated connectivity between science and economy, aligned innovation projects with real productivity, promoted transformation of innovative achievements, and facilitated the commercialization of innovative products. In the future, the university will make greater efforts to create a Beihang-model innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, contribute to the building of Beijing science and technology innovation center and wholeheartedly support the national innovation-driven development strategy.
Zhao Gang addressed the audience at the ceremony
Xia wei pointed out that the vision of Beihang Investment Co., Ltd. is to create an innovation investment and incubation ecosystem with Beihang characteristics and provide a world-leading innovation and entrepreneurship platform that is deeply rooted in Haidian, in Beijing and in China, in order to converge more elements of innovation and entrepreneurship from all over the world. Up to now, BHIEC Global has been held for two sessions. Among over 3,000 projects collected in the competition, some projects have reached world advanced level, some have broken overseas technical monopoly and others have been applied in the national major projects.
According to Xia Wei, Beihang Investment Co., Ltd. will continue to improve the publicity, branding, scope and quality of the competition. In particular, it will focus on improving quality of the projects. In this way, the competition will be served as a solid support for innovation-driven development of the country, which links universities and research institutes with capital and markets.
Xia Wei made the speech
At the event, Wang Tianmiao, Honorary Director of Robotics Institute of Beihang University and Yangli, General Manager of Beijing Science and Technology Innovation Investment Co., Ltd. gave speeches on innovation. Liu Xiaolong, General Manager of BUAA Science Park introduced the newly launched “Beihang Stars” Plan in detail.
The “Beihang Stars Plan”, which follows the example of Harvard “SEED for Social Innovation”, was founded by Beihang Investment Co., Ltd., BUAA Science Park and Beihang Tianhui Technology Incubation Co., Ltd. In this way, a transformation system of scientific and technological achievements that is unique to Beihang will be established to cultivate youth entrepreneurs in Beihang.
The plan covered four aspects. The first is to offer entrepreneurship training. For example, Beihang Investment Co., Ltd. together with the School of Economics and Management has run the course “Elementary Knowledge and Practice of Entrepreneurship” for two semesters, lectured by successful entrepreneurs, executives of large companies and big names in investment community. The course is made up of six lectures delivering general knowledge and four lectures of practice, elucidating every single stage in the process of starting a new business.
The second is to offer initial capital. Beihang Investment Co., Ltd. will invest a total number of 10 million yuan seed capital to fund Beihang start-up projects. Besides, the Stars Up Technology subordinated to the Beihang Investment Co., Ltd. will provide start-up businesses with shared workspace, which reduces the cost of entrepreneurs at the early phase.
The third is to launch a “speed-up” camp joined by a certain number of selected projects. In the camp, technical professors, executives of large companies and successful entrepreneurs will be invited to help the participators refine their products and business models, which accelerates the growth of the start-up businesses.
The fourth is to establish a Beihang investment ecosystem, spotting and cultivating promising Beihang start-up businesses. Meanwhile, more and more venture capital firms owned by Beihang alumni will be involved. In this way, an investment ecosystem that is unique to Beihang will be created, realizing the vision that Beihang investors invest on Beihang entrepreneurs.
The ceremony came to an end with the awarding of cooperation institutes that funded projects in 2019 BHIEC Global. More than 10 investment institutes offer support for the pick of the projects in the competition.
The awarding of cooperation institutes that funded projects in 2019 BHIEC Global
The 2019 BHIEC Global, which focuses on China’s national strategic emerging industries and competitive disciplines of Beihang like Integrated Circuits, Artificial Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering, Air&Space, high-end equipment manufacturing and New Materials, works towards goals of spotting all kinds of worthwhile projects, speeding up the industrialization of high-tech in Beihang and helping companies with innovative technology models and business formats stand out.
BHIEC Global has been held for 2 sessions with a number of regional contests in over 12 regions including Beijiang, Silicon Valley, Tian Jin, Zhe Jiang and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. More than 3,000 scientific and technological innovation projects from universities and research institutes such as Beihang University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Imperial College London, University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Xi’an Jiaotong University, the Second Academy of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation entered the competition. The valuation of the award-winning projects reachedan estimation of over 2 billion yuan and the fund raised throughout the competition reached 500 million yuan.
The competition was organized by Beihang University, General Alumni Association of Beihang, Youth League Committee of Beihang, the Publicity Department of the Party Committee of Beihang, Beihang Entrepreneur Club, BUAA Holdings Co., Ltd. and Beihang Investment Co., Ltd.
At the launch ceremony
The registration for 2019 BHIEC Global opens at Sept. 15. The registered projects will be divided into two groups based on the valuation (whether the valuation reaches 100 million yuan or not). The projects are supposed to pioneer the technological and industrial development with promising market value, social value, innovative capacity and growth capacity. Innovative achievements, clear financing requirements, explicit business prospectus and plan of transformation of science and technology are also required. The winners will be funded and supported by various sponsors of the competition.
Reported by Zhao Wei
Edited by Jia Aiping
Photographed by Jin Hui and Shi Kun
Reviewed by Tan Hualin
Translated by Xiong Ting
