The Yangpu Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Center has a giant backdrop with five big words, "Look up to the entrepreneurs". This is Xie Jihua's motto. In his view, innovation and entrepreneurship is related to the future of a country and a nation, therefore, to give entrepreneurs the greatest respect.

Morning Post reporter Jiang Lijun

 

In Fudan University next to the intersection of Guoding Road Handan, Yangpu Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Center between the two buildings has a giant background board, on the book in five characters: "Look up to the entrepreneurs", which is the general manager of Yangpu Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Center Co. In his view, innovation and entrepreneurship is related to the future of a country and a nation, therefore, to give entrepreneurs the greatest respect. It is precisely this sincerity to entrepreneurship that has enabled Yangpu Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Center to become the largest technology business incubator in Shanghai with the largest assets and the most complete service functions after 14 years of development.

Farewell to the iron rice bowl in the civil service

In 1994, Xie Jihua left the Shanghai Communist Youth League for 11 years to work for Shanghai Science and Technology Investment Company. Saying goodbye to the iron rice bowl of civil servants, from the Minister of the Communist Youth League to an ordinary employee of the company, Xie Jihua needed to start everything from scratch, such a gap once made him regret.

"The only way is to get yourself into shape quickly," Xie Jihua said to himself, and by the time he was 37, he was earning one of the highest salaries in Shanghai Science and Technology Investment and was in charge of projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

At this time, "forget the pain" Xie Jihua and began a second "business", Xie Jihua to return the previous year all the income way out of the old owner, once again from scratch, became the Shanghai high-tech enterprises Yangpu Incubation Base Co. Employees.

Before Xie Jihua came, Shanghai Yangpu Hi-Tech Entrepreneurial Service Center, located on a small road next to Fudan University, was the first incubator to be established near a university in China, but it was only the landlord of an old 6,000-square-meter candy factory, relying on rental income to barely keep up with expenses.

"The entrepreneurial service center is an institution, and there is a contradiction between the mechanism and the functional positioning of the incubator." Xie Jihua believes that institutions drought and flood, over-reliance on financial allocations, will not be forced by the market to improve the quality of service, to explore the business model, which forms a weakness. Xie Jihua force institutional mechanism reform, proposed the establishment of entrepreneurial service center "two teams, two sets of system", the incubator operation and ownership of the separation, the former belongs to the market operation of the company (incubator base company), which belongs to the non-profit institutions (entrepreneurial service center).

At that time, to set up the Shanghai high-tech enterprises Yangpu Incubation Base Co., Ltd. needed 45 million yuan of registered capital, but the municipal science and technology committee can come up with a total of only 5 million yuan of cash, the district financial difficulties. Xie Jihua in three shareholders and the incubation base company, he designed a complex capital operation plan. In the end, the Municipal Science and Technology Commission (Shanghai Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Center) exchanged its investment in the old factory building for 55.61 TP1T of the incubation base company's equity; Yangpu District (Shanghai Yangpu Science and Technology Investment Development Co., Ltd.) exchanged a piece of unused green land for 22.21 TP1T of equity; and Fudan (Shanghai Fudan Science and Technology Park Co., Ltd.) transferred 10 million yuan of the city's investment in the science and technology park to the incubation base company. Inc. for a 22.21 TP1T stake.

"The linkage of university campuses, science and technology parks, and public communities was an important path in the subsequent transformation of Yangpu, and the incubator is considered the earliest practitioner of the 'three districts' idea." After the success of Xie Jihua said.

In early 2005, Yangpu Hi-Tech Entrepreneurial Service Center and Shanghai Yangpu Hi-Tech Enterprise Incubation Base Co., Ltd. were restructured and reorganized as Shanghai Yangpu Science and Technology Entrepreneurial Center Co.

"It's more like a mentor than an elder."

In early 2007, Xie Jihua put forward the construction of incubators group development road strategic planning, the total amount of taxes paid to the park enterprises only 50 million yuan in 2008, to 2014 has reached 178 million yuan, the total amount of financing for entrepreneurship center enterprises from 80 million yuan in 2008 grew to 1.5 billion yuan in 2014.

The original registered capital was only 1 million RMB and the team consisted of only 6 people. After seven years of cultivation in Yangpu, Huaping Information was successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's Growth Enterprise Market in 2010, becoming the first listed company that the incubator cultivated independently. The other company, Shanghai Huaqianshu Information Technology Co., Ltd, also known as "Shijiayuan", was listed on NASDAQ.

Shanghai Fuzhan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. is now a new three board listed enterprises, the founder of the enterprise Sun Hongtao remember, at the beginning of the founding of his hairy boy by mistake he did everything, has opened shops, operated a comic book bar, did auto parts, electronics, lighting, at the time, think "can support their own, can make money on the good", but it was There was no clear direction mapped out, there was a lot of trouble stumbling along the way, and even future mothers-in-law found the son-in-law very unreliable.

In 2005, Sun Hongtao and two other graduate students wanted to start their own business based on their professional skills, and applied for a 300,000 RMB college student venture fund. Xie Jihua gave them a lot of encouragement and affirmation for their projects, introduced preferential policies to them, and invited them to settle in Yangchuang.

During the start-up period, Sun and his partners worked until very late every day, and Xie Jihua also accompanied them until very late. Seeing that Sun Hongtao, in order to survive, once did everything, studying electronics, he even provided tablecloths for five-star hotels, Xie Jihua promptly reminded them of the future development of a plan, rather than "pull to the basket is food".

For Sun Hongtao, Xie Jihua is both a mentor, more like an elder, you can talk about everything. When there is a conflict between him and his girlfriend, Xie Jihua comes to be the "old mother's uncle"; even when discussing marriage, Xie Jihua still helps to do work for Sun Hongtao's mother-in-law. Sun Hongtao said, "For a non-local entrepreneur, the sense of belonging is very important, and Yang Chuang and Xie gave me this sense of belonging."

In this regard, Qu Lin, who once served as Xie Jihua's secretary, said, "Xie Jihua has always believed that entrepreneurs should be respected and helped, not given, and in many cases, not as a leader, but as a mentor to entrepreneurs, both at work and in life." And Xie Jihua himself said, "I love this job, and while I help others realize their own value, I also realize my own value in life."

Looking to create a central innovation district

In 2010, Huapin Technology, a company in the Yangpu Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Center that had been cultivated from seedlings, successfully went public, and Xie Jihua had been thinking: "Can we help more companies follow Huapin's path? How do you help graduate startups accelerate their growth?"

At the end of December 2009, with the support of the Shanghai Hi-Tech Zone, the third phase of the Yangpu Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Center "No. 3 Bay" was officially put into operation, which is positioned as an accelerator for enterprises that have been evaluated and selected as having high growth potential.

Ltd. was once caught in the dilemma of market and capital expansion out of sync. In 2012, Yangpu Accelerator and Pfeiffer jointly issued 150 million yuan of loan products, which solved the shortage of 10 million yuan. In 2013, Yangpu Accelerator invested 3 million yuan in Pfeiffer, and in 2014, Pfeiffer was listed on the New Third Board.

"As businesses grow, services need to be constantly updated. By introducing professional organizations to provide technical support to enterprises, we also make our services more sustainable." Xie Jihua said that since then, the Yangpu Technology and Entrepreneurship Center has been promoting the Internet of Things Experience Center with the Integrated Circuit Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Microsoft; cooperating with the Information Industry Group to build the Shanghai Greater Yangpu "Smart Innovation and Practice Special Zone" (Smart Cluster) project, providing entrepreneurial SMEs with professional services and operations in the digital and information industries. Office facilities and extensive growth support.

"To achieve the accelerated development of enterprises, one is driven by capital and the other is driven by technological innovation." Xie Jihua believes that only the bridging of government, technology, and capital can improve the development and operation of the accelerator.In June 2014, the Yangpu Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Center also launched a set of "special policy zone" and "special talent zone". The Bay Valley Science and Technology Park will be a "special capital zone" and will be developed into a new Yangpu accelerator.

Now, Xie Jihua has another title - general manager of the Bay Valley Technology Park, and in his planning, one of the missions that Bay Valley will undertake in the future should be the construction of the Central Innovation District (CID), which will also be an important way for Yangpu to move towards version 2.0 in the whole innovation pilot construction process. "In the future, the Bay Valley Technology Park will no longer just be a physical park with clear boundaries, but a technology and capital hub with its back to the Bay Valley, based in the Bay Valley, facing Shanghai, facing the Yangtze River Delta, facing all of China, facing the world, and serving all technological innovation," Xie Jihua said.

Technology transfer brings new opportunities

"Last year, May 24, General Secretary Xi put forward to Shanghai to build a science and technology center with global influence, I was so happy that day, immediately reported to the city government to build the 'East Center' idea in Shanghai, the city government in August to play a report to the Ministry of Science and Technology, November got the national Ministry of Science and Technology Approval, agreed Shanghai to build 'East Center'." The "East Center" that Xie Jihua refers to is the National Technology Transfer East Center, which officially landed in Shanghai in November 2014, and is an important part of his plan for a "Central Innovation District" in Yangpu, making the Yangpu Bay Valley the first place where the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Shanghai Municipal Government have approved the construction of the "East Center". Jointly promote the establishment of a regional technology transfer platform to gather strategic emerging industries and traditional industries for upgrading.

Xie Jihua believes that if Shanghai wants to build a science and technology center with global influence, it must connect with the international community and participate in international competition, which requires strengthening the ability to transform scientific and technological achievements. However, in many fields nowadays, there is a disconnect between industry, academia and research and the market. "Universities and research institutes are national, they don't care about industrialization, they only care about issuing papers, of course this phenomenon has improved now. The most effective means of blending industry, academia and research together is the market, and the essence of the market is to connect through capital in tandem." According to Xie Jihua, a major direction of the East Center is to establish a multi-level capital market that can promote technology transfer.

Xie Jihua said that to build a science and technology innovation center with global influence is to make the world's top scientists are willing to come to Shanghai. And now the National Technology Transfer East Center, has begun to layout in the world's most innovative and dynamic several points: in March this year, first in Boston, the United States set up a China-U.S. Enterprise Innovation Center, dedicated to China-U.S. soft landing and M&A transactions; in the Netherlands set up a European international M&A platform, dedicated to European technology transfer and M&A; in Singapore set up the Bay Valley Innovation Space Station, dedicated to China-Singapore technology and Technology resource interaction, and the internationalization of Chinese companies.

"The National Technology Transfer Eastern Center has set up branch centers in Xinjiang, Gansu and Kunming. We hope that the National Technology Transfer Eastern Center can focus on all upstream and downstream aspects of technology transfer, form a cluster of technology, service and industrial resources, build a strategic national technology transfer highland and create a global technology transfer hub," Xie Jihua said.