Qiu Shi panel discussion, entitled Subvert the road ahead: scientists & entrepreneurs was held after the awarding ceremony on Sep. 19th. Distinguished scientists and entrepreneurs were involved in the forum.
Firstly Prof. LU Bai from Tsinghua University raised an open question for discussion, nowadays our country is encouraging the whole society to participate in starting their own business, under this trend, two opposite opinions on what should we teachers and students in universities do were raised, the first one is that universities are purely for study and research, students in universities must keep calm and do some research in deed, but not busy creating their own business; the second one is, some others think that universities should make their own efforts on this issue.
Then Prof. XUE Qikun, the vice president of Tsinghua University shared his opinions on this, he thought that for professors and college students, their mission is to do world-class research, though entrepreneurship training is needed, but making money is not the main goal. Innovation can only be achieved when cutting-edge research outcomes are revealed. By the way, X-lab was founded in THU for helping students in THU to run a business when they are still students.
Prof. WANG Liming from Zhejiang University didn’t agree with XUE’s idea, he thought that innovation in creating business doesn’t mean that we can run a business only when the most cutting-edge research outcome is achieved. Innovation is needed in running a business, but what’s more important is that your product must meet the customer’s requirement.
Prof. ZHANG Yuanbo from Fudan University then talked about the shared characteristics in successful scientists and entrepreneurs; he thought that they both are risk-taking, passionate, challenge facing and focus.
Prof. WANG Xiaodong from National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS) shared his experience on running two businesses, he said that running a business is never a easy thing to do, his first business failed because he didn’t realize the importance of teamwork at that time, but for ‘Baiji Shenzhou’, the second company he run currently, is thriving and prosperous, just because this time he run the business with a more complete and professional team.
Mr. CHEN Xun, founder and CEO of BaseBit Technologies, said that no matter what you choose to do, both research and business require ‘independent personality’, this is the spirit which will help people to overcome the challenges and troubles and finally lead to success.
Finally Prof. LU Bai concluded that running a business by scientists and students are encouraged, but we should learn more about entrepreneurship if we really want to do so.
(HUANG Jun, USTC News Center)
