Ding Han, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, speaks at the 2024 Optics Valley Talent Development Convention on Jan 24. [Photo/WeChat account of Optics Valley of China]

The 2024 Optics Valley Talent Development Convention and the award ceremony for the 3551 International Entrepreneurship Competition took place in the East Lake High-tech Development Zone (also known as Optics Valley of China, or OVC), on Jan 24.

Some 300 guests, including academicians, experts, as well as representatives from leading enterprises, venture capital institutions, incubators, and universities, were invited to attend the event.

Ding Han, an academician from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, shared his insights on robotics and his research in smart manufacturing. He believes that OVC needs to support the industrial research and cultivation of application-oriented talents. It should also focus on smooth channels for sci-tech result transfers, financing and investment.

The 3551 talent award, talent innovation and entrepreneurship award, and industry-education integration award, were just some of the awards that were issued during the ceremony.

In 2023, a total of 542 people were selected as 3551 OVC talents. The zone also oversaw the release of a batch of groundbreaking technologies and frontier technologies last year.

The award winners pose for a group photo at the convention. [Photo/WeChat account of Optics Valley of China]

This edition of the 3551 International Entrepreneurship Competition spanned across several industrial fields, and involved doctors from renowned universities, such as Stanford University and Tsinghua University. So far, 146 projects in the competition have settled in the OVC.

The valley is currently home to four Nobel Prize winners, 81 overseas and Chinese academicians, and 3447 talents that are part of the 3551 talent program. Its employee proportion with a higher education background has risen from 55 percent to 81 percent.