TMCD has had a busy few months on the conference circuit across the world.

Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference in Canada

TMCD was one of the co-organisers of the 8th Annual Conference for the Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (AIE) in Toronto, Canada last August. The conference, which was co-chaired by TMCD’s Prof Xiaolan Fu, provided a broad platform to convene scholars from around the world to present research and to stimulate discussions on critical research issues and new developments in innovation and entrepreneurship.

The conference focused on ‘Buiding an Inclusive Entrepreneurship Ecosystem’, and brought together over 100 speakers specialising in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Panel sessions including discussions on immigrant, female and aboriginal entrepreneurship and university incubation were held.

Xiaolan Fu addressed a keynote panel on Chinese and Canadian innovation policy. Her topic was China’s path to innovation and she explained to the conference how China can emerge from being an imitator to an innovator. She also stressed that collaboration across universities, institutes, businesses and governments is of great importance to promoting country’s technology development.

More information http://www.ryerson.ca/tedrogersschool/conference/aie/

Conference programme http://www.ryerson.ca/content/dam/tedrogersschool/images/conference/AIE-2015-Conference-Program.pdf

TED Conference in China

Professor Xiaolan Fu delivered the keynote speech at the 6th Biennial Conference on Transition and Economic Development (TED) in September in Shanghai. Her speech was about China’s path to innovation and introduced the concept of an Open National/ Regional Innovation System in the globalisation era.

Our own Dr Jun Hou also presented a paper on Unpacking the relationship between OFDI and innovation performance: the moderating effect of contextual factor, co-authored with Professors Xiaolan Fu and Xiaohui Liu. His paper contained evidence of how Chinese MNEs (multi-national enterprises) successfully use OFDI (outward foreign direct investment) as a channel to enlarge their knowledge base and resource pool. Findings from this research also indicate that the impact of OFDI on innovation performance is contingent on a firm’s characteristics, such as in-house R&D (research and development), knowledge-seeking motives and international experience.

The conference theme was ‘Industrial upgrading and future prospects of the Chinese economy: demographic change, financial markets, and industrial policies’.

Sino-UK Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum

The 2015 Sino-UK Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum took place in Beijing in September.

The objective of the forum was to provide a platform to:

• discuss the challenges in innovation and economic growth facing both countries and the role of closer China-UK collaboration in addressing this
• promote greater knowledge and talent exchange and innovation collaboration between the two countries, and
• communicate this to policy makers, practitioners, academics and the wider community in both countries.

The speakers included:

• Dr Xiqing Chen, Deputy Minister of United Front Work Department of the CPC Central, Party Secretary of the WRSA - COSA. Dr Chen told the forum three stories about Chinese overseas-educated students returning to China to start their business. He very much welcomed and encouraged the overseas students and scholars to return and serve the country.
• Madam Yaping Deng, Chinese table tennis player, who won six world championships and four Olympic championships between 1989 and 1997 and studied for a PhD in Land Economy at the University of Cambridge. Madam Deng took her own legendary life experience as an example of how innovation is everywhere and can magnify the value of your life.
• Mr Chaoyong Wang, founding partner and Chief Executive Officer of ChinaEquity International Holding Co., Ltd., a China-based independent venture capital firm which focuses on the technology, media and telecommunications sectors in China. Chaoyong Wang said that as now China is strongly encouraging its people to innovate, it is a great time for people - especially overseas scholars and students - to realise their entrepreneurial dreams.
• Professor Xiaolan Fu, founding Director of the TMCD, Professor of Technology and International Development at the University of Oxford and leading expert on innovation, technology and industrialisation in developing countries. Xiaolan Fu spoke about innovation in the globalisation era and the benefits of an open national innovation system and talent exchange being central to collaboration between China and the UK.

The forum was co-organised by the Western Returned Scholars Association - Chinese Overseas-Educated Scholars Association (WRSA - COSA) and TMCD.

Overseas Talents Entrepreneurship Fora

Oxbridge entrepreneurs presented their technologies and business proposals to investors and venture capitalists at a series of Overseas Talents Entrepreneurship fora in China last month, with a view to finding investment to further develop their businesses.

The events aimed to provide Oxbridge doctoral candidates and research fellows as well as other overseas talents, an opportunity to commercialise their research outcomes and translate their technologies into the real-world context.

A broad range of technologies - including health and medical treatment, environment protection, novel materials, electronic engineering, and information technology – where showcased.  A couple of promising projects successfully found investors, including ‘Energy-saving architectural optical film’ by Dr Qibing Zhao’s team from Cambridge University, and ‘Super-inert anticorrosion composite material’ by Dr Jie Zhao’s team from Netherlands.

The fora, which took place in Beijing, Shenyang, Shenzhen and a number of other Chinese cities, were organised by TMCD, the Western Returned Scholars Association - Chinese Overseas-Educated Scholars Association (WRSA - COSA), Beijing Fangshan District Government, Shenyang Municipal Government, Shenzhen Futian District Government and Isis Innovations Ltd.