Great accomplishments span a millennium, with talent leading the way.
Entering a new era, Suzhou's talent work continues to break boundaries, attract talent from home and abroad: During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the total number of talents and high-level talents increased by 41% and 70% respectively. The number of entrepreneurial talents in the national major talent projects has ranked first in the country for nine consecutive years, and the number of provincial entrepreneurial talents has ranked first in the province for 15 consecutive years. Suzhou has been selected as the "most attractive city for foreign talents" for ten consecutive years, and has been twice selected as China's best city for attracting talents...
These honorary titles affirm Suzhou's talent work, but they are also abstract summaries. So, we found eight Suzhou "dream chasers" and had a chat with them about their inner thoughts.
Among them are post-90s entrepreneurial youths and well-known founders in the industry; there are "professors" who have broken through the bottleneck of high-end medical equipment and technical experts who have given up foreign nationality to come to Suzhou to create "cores"... Their pasts are different, but they are all realizing their dreams in Suzhou. They also share a common identity—leading talents in Suzhou. From their experiences of chasing dreams, we can see the ever-changing Suzhou and explore the answers to "why choose Suzhou".
Peng Biao's Haoli Mechanical and Electrical (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. is mainly engaged in the heat dissipation and cooling of high-power power electronics. When it was first established, the company had only three employees and fixed assets of over 30,000 yuan. It was hard to imagine how to compete with foreign companies. However, in July 2021, Haoli Mechanical and Electrical successfully won the bid for the "Baihetan-Jiangsu" ±800kVkV Ultra-High Voltage Direct Current Transmission Project, securing a 50% share and sharing the limelight with foreign companies for the first time.
Peng Biao said that during the development of the company, the pragmatic and efficient approach of the Suzhou government departments left the deepest impression on him.
Sun Ke is a post-90s entrepreneurial youth. The company he founded, Suzhou CORNIGS Polyol Co., Ltd., expanded the traditional food sugar alcohol industry into the industrial application field, thus tapping into a brand new blue ocean market. With the company established for only three years, its output value has already exceeded one hundred million yuan.
Behind the growth and expansion, Sun Ke said that it wouldn't have been possible without the strong support from Suzhou.
In 2019, Suzhou CORNIGS was approved as the first national project for polyol production, and the company built the first GMP standard fully automated polyol production line in China. Thanks to Suzhou's talent selection philosophy of "not only considering age, not only considering education background," Sun Ke became the youngest Suzhou leading talent in history.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, much attention has been focused on the development of drugs to combat the novel coronavirus. With the independently developed drug Pulukuramine, Tong Youzhi, Chairman and CEO of KaiTuo Pharmaceuticals, stated that the company has entered the top echelon of global competition.
Developing innovative drugs has been Tong Youzhi's dream, and he chose to realize this dream in Suzhou. In 2008, Tong returned to China to start his own business, securing the first place in investment and financing roadshows in Suzhou Industrial Park. In 2009, KaiTuo Pharmaceuticals was established in Suzhou Industrial Park. From having no money to pay salaries to now having self-built research and development centers and industrialization bases, Tong Youzhi believes that Suzhou is a "land of blessings" for entrepreneurs.
Chen Hong was once a professor who undertook multiple projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Science and Technology, and published over 200 papers in international journals. However, her current identity is the Chairperson of Jiangsu Baifase Bio-technology Co., Ltd. By transitioning from academia to entrepreneurship, Chen Hong has challenged many people's prejudices. Her company has established the first domestic medical coating full industry chain professional technical service platform, breaking through the bottleneck of high-end medical devices and achieving domestic substitution.
Looking back on the early days of entrepreneurship, Chen Hong feels grateful to Suzhou. "At that time, we were in a 150-square-meter house, and when leaders came to inspect, they didn't know where to sit. In such a small place, they didn't think that your scale was too small to support you. Instead, they saw that the products you were making were indeed very important."
Yang Haofang is a cross-disciplinary entrepreneur in Suzhou. With a background in communication technology, he has delved deep into the medical field. While it's said that venturing across disciplines is not easy, Yang Haofang has turned his company into an industry "unicorn."
Targeting grassroots healthcare, they have developed products such as "capsule clinics" and family doctor patrol kits, becoming the first "gatekeeper" to safeguard the medical health of ordinary people. Currently, Gairui Technology's products have entered 28 provinces across the country, serving nearly 60,000 grassroots health stations and covering a total population of over 150 million.
Yang Haofang openly admits that when he and the core team members first came to Suzhou to start their business with their backpacks, they had no resources. The "nanny-style" service provided by the Suzhou government was crucial for them to grow into a leading enterprise in the industry.
Yuan Bo's entrepreneurial project in Suzhou has always focused on the development of bottom-level charging technology and the research of high-performance charging products. The first product developed by him and his team, a high-capacity lithium battery fast charger, has reduced the traditional 6-8 hour charging time to less than 1 hour. The collaborative development of the "Smart Charging Grid" can provide real-time warnings and automatic disposal of charging behaviors that may pose safety hazards at networked sites. This platform has been replicated and promoted in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Yangzhou.
Yuan Bo said that in over six years of entrepreneurship, Suzhou has given him the impression of having a first-class entrepreneurial environment. Regardless of what stage you are at in your entrepreneurial journey, you will feel a sense of inclusiveness and respect, a sense of integration.
Zhang Jiaqi has been working on robot control-related tasks since his doctoral studies. His entrepreneurship is also related to this field. However, he chose to enter a very specialized area of industrial robots small load robots, disrupting the traditional design approach of industrial robots and filling the gap in the domestic market.
The latest product, the dexterous cloud-based mechanical arm, took two years to develop. It has a load capacity of 1 kilogram, a reach of 540 millimeters, and a repeat positioning accuracy of less than ±0.05 millimeters. It pioneered the use of two-stage belt reduction in China, and is predicted to have a market value of around 20 billion yuan.
Zhang Jiaqi said that at every stage of the company's development, government departments have been concerned and provided great assistance. Suzhou deserves a big thumbs up for this.
Wang Jun is an expert in the field of high-power semiconductor lasers. He gave up his foreign nationality to start a business in Suzhou, leading his team to overcome the "bottleneck" issue and achieve the "laser core" made in China.
In the past, the core technology of chips was long monopolized by foreign countries, and China was once trapped in the situation of "having devices but no cores." Faced with foreign blockades, Wang Jun said that the first major support after starting a business was the 20 million yuan support fund brought by the recognition of Suzhou's major innovation team, which was like "a timely help in a crisis, helping us to develop." Suzhou is not only a place to attract talent but also a blessed land for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Under Wang Jun's leadership, Changguang Huaxin has established a semiconductor laser "invisible national team." The Suzhou Semiconductor Laser Innovation Research Institute, co-founded by Changguang Huaxin, is expected to gather innovative industries worth over ten billion yuan in the future.
The dream stories of these eight leading talents in Suzhou continue, and we also hope to see more talents from all walks of life make Suzhou their "land of dreams".
"Where there is talent, there is accomplishment!" Suzhou has the confidence in talent to achieve great things, the vitality to gather talents from all over the world, the determination to break down barriers, the harmony to find peace in poetic living, and the broad-mindedness to integrate, construct, and expand. All these efforts aim to ensure that all kinds of talents find their rightful place and contribute to the high-quality development of Suzhou's economy and society with a continuous and robust driving force.
Editor: Leyi'ang
