We need to both grow upwards and take root downwards, and the number of professionals in Shanghai has exceeded 3 million
When it comes to professional technicians, many people may wonder: which ones are professional technicians? Do I count?
In fact, as long as this title is specific to professions such as teachers, doctors, engineers, accountants, etc., we can roughly outline its image - a person who possesses specific professional skills and engages in professional work with their professional skills.
Among the 25 million permanent residents in Shanghai, the total number of such talents has exceeded 3 million. Among them, more than 10000 people enjoy government special allowances, 1739 are selected as leading talents in Shanghai, more than 30000 are postdoctoral fellows, and 2435 are "super postdoctoral fellows".
At the 2023 Shanghai Professional and Technical Talents and Project Matchmaking Conference held recently, a group of high-level talents, engineers, postdoctoral and other professional and technical talents expanded their innovative horizons through competitions, negotiations, and discussions, while also taking root and promoting the transformation of achievements, unleashing a vigorous vitality of innovation and creation.
"There is support and companionship on the path of innovation"
Holding the 3rd Shanghai Postdoctoral Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition and the 1st Shanghai Young and Middle aged Engineer Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, releasing the phased achievements of the city's professional title system reform, and holding a matchmaking and negotiation meeting... During the two-day conference period, the organizers organized a rich and diverse range of activities around professional and technical talents.
Zhu Yinghua, Director of the Professional and Technical Personnel Management Department of the Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, said that this year's first centralized "two competitions and one meeting" is aimed at building a platform for professional and technical talents to compete, showcase, exchange and connect, and release a positive signal to strengthen the construction of professional and technical talent teams.
The Shanghai Postdoctoral Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, held for the third consecutive year, has added 9 professional fields of competition this year, including biomedicine and health, new generation information technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy, new materials, modern agriculture and food, marine development and application, and financial technology. Nearly 400 postdoctoral fellows from 50 postdoctoral stations in the city have signed up to participate, with the largest scale of participation in history.
Xia Long, the Managing Director of Yifeng Capital, participated in the Shanghai Postdoctoral Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition as a judge for the second time. Upon entering the venue, his first impression was that the scale had increased, and he was pleasantly surprised by the high-quality participating projects. He could feel that the importance placed on postdoctoral fellows in all aspects was increasing.
In the view of Fan Zhouwei, a competition participant and a postdoctoral fellow at COMAC, participating in the competition helps broaden one's horizons. "I have learned about the latest developments in other areas of high-end manufacturing, and I have also gained a lot of insightful opinions in the process of communicating with the judges. I am more confident in the research that will follow.". It is reported that the average age of participants in this competition is 32 years old, with the youngest being only 25 years old. The winner of the winning prize will receive the "Super Postdoctoral" project award.
The Shanghai Youth Engineer Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, held for the first time, set up six tracks including digital technology research and development, digital technology application, high-end manufacturing, transportation construction, resource ecology, and social services, attracting 353 projects and 1658 participants. Finally, 20 excellent innovation and entrepreneurship projects were selected.
Duan Yilin, an engineer born in the 1990s, has brought the "New Generation Trusted Artificial Intelligence Large Model Industrial Quality Inspection Application System" project. He also received an unexpected joy this time: thanks to the current round of professional title system reform, through the "competition instead of evaluation", his engineer title was suddenly raised from deputy high to senior high.
"I was awarded the title of Deputy Senior High for only 4 years," Duan Yilin told reporters. According to the previous process of evaluating engineer titles, it usually takes 5 to 8 years to go from Deputy Senior to Senior High. This time, having the title of Senior High directly is a great motivation for oneself. "There is support and companionship on the path of innovation, which in itself is full of motivation.".
"Find a place worth fighting for"
When asked about the "growth troubles" of professional and technical talents, many people will mention the problem of "strong research and weak transformation".
In response to these common difficulties in converting achievements, this conference actively collaborated and linked resources, helping more than 1000 engineers and postdoctoral fellows to connect with more than 100 industrial parks, incubators, leading enterprises, venture capital institutions, and financial institutions, including Sequoia China, Zhangjiang Science and Technology Investment, Roche Pharmaceutical, Huanshang Science and Technology Park, Bank of China, etc., to promote talent and project integration in the innovation chain, industrial chain, talent chain, policy chain, and capital chain.
Postdoctoral Zhang Bangzhou's project "Microecological Medicine and Industrial Application" is the first enterprise in China to provide a comprehensive solution for precise microbiota transplantation, which has been favored by multiple investment and financing institutions;
The project "Third Generation Semiconductor Wafer Testing Equipment" by postdoctoral Peng Bofang has been successfully signed with the Pudong Software Park Incubator;
The Shanghai Shipbuilding Research and Design Institute has released a preliminary cooperation agreement with Shanghai Jiao Tong University postdoctoral fellow Cao Tianyu on the "Multi source Heterogeneous Large Commercial Ships under Complex Operations" project;
The engineering team from Daguan Information Technology's "Enterprise level Intelligent Text Review System with Deep Integration of Big Language Models" has reached preliminary cooperation intentions with the School of Computer Science, Fudan University, and will further deepen integration in the field of big language models
Zhang Bangzhou finally decided to sign a contract with an incubation platform of Zhangjiang Innovation Park and will establish a team in Pudong. Before the competition, he hurriedly arrived from another city dragging his suitcase and talked about the reasons for choosing Shanghai Zhangjiang. He bluntly stated, "Because this place can provide more talent, technology, and platform support, it is a place worth fighting for.".
Talents are looking for investments, and capital is also looking for people. As an investor, Xia Long serves as a judge while also searching for suitable investment projects. After two days, he silently ticked three projects in his mind - in his opinion, these are all projects with market potential and are likely to become leaders in the segmented track.
Xia Long sighed, from the perspective of investment institutions, we definitely hope to choose the best from the best. Currently, there are many innovation and entrepreneurship projects like stars, and how to select the best projects has become a major challenge for investors. "Therefore, the Postdoctoral Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition is also a window for us, allowing us to focus more on excellent people and achievements.".
It is understood that as of now, the conference has facilitated a total of 93 cooperation intentions, among which 19 postdoctoral entrepreneurial projects have reached landing agreements with industrial parks, 30 projects have reached preliminary intentions with venture capital or financial institutions, 9 people have reached preliminary intentions for on-site cooperation with employers, and 35 young and middle-aged engineer innovation and entrepreneurship teams have achieved one-on-one cooperation with industry experts.