My Trip to China

Last November, the Chinese Government selected five Brazilian representatives (see Image and Legend above) for the ITTN Program and I was one of them. I was selected to stay the whole month of November in China since I am the Director of Innovation and Research at UCB in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. The selection criteria was the Innovation Stage and Evolution of the Academic Center of the Institution you are linked to and its current leadership. My Curriculum and Merit as the Director of Innovation was also evaluated. In 22 days, we had the chance to visit and do specific training in various Chinese cities, such as Shanghai, Beijing, Furzhou, Shijiazhuang, Nanjing, etc. Groups of people representing more than 15 countries such as Russia, South Africa, Belarus, Serbia, Thailand, India and others were also selected for this Training. Well, I just needed to write a Blog post dedicated to this trip since I’ve changed my vision about China. ITTN stands for “International Technology Transfer Network” and is a non-profit organization based in China that is dedicated to promoting international technology transfer and innovation services for organizations from different countries around the world. ITTN has already developed long-term partnerships with more than 400 foreign technology transfer organizations from more than 40 countries and more than 500 national organizations in China, which is a major Globalized resource collaboration network. After this trip I can say that China has changed, and a lot. Even though there are lots of problems, such as poverty, pollution, violence, etc I saw a country very focused in a strategic planning for the future, especially in sectors such as technology and Innovation. We had the chance to visit Universities, Hospitals, several Technology Parks and Company Incubators and I was blown away. The experience in all cities that we have visited was extremely positive. The country is in full growth in the productive and civil construction sectors. We had the opportunity to travel by bullet train between cities and the trains can reach up to 400 km/h. They built a huge railway network based system. We were able to see impressive work of infrastructure with technological parks connected to Shopping malls, housing and leisure area everywhere. In all the cities we have visited, there is a constant concern with the cleaning of air pollution, green energy and reduction of the emission of toxic gas, mainly carbon monoxide of the cars since the country has 1.3 billion people. China has been investing heavily in technologies to end air toxicity, which can reach extreme levels as we have seen closely in Beijing and Shijiazhuang, for example. Air pollution can be felt with a strong smell of toxic gases. Many people have to wear masks on days with extreme pollution. In the case of cities like Shanghai and Nanjing, pollution is already being better controlled by some measures that limit the number of cars per family and the use of small electric motorcycles. One fact that impressed me was the cleanliness of Chinese cities and all public transportation. My previous impression was that the Chinese cities were extremely dirty, especially the streets. This fact was demystified during my visit. In my point of view, the main highlights of this trip was China’s strategic planning to become the world’s first economy by 2020. The Chinese are bringing qualified professionals and people from around the globe to demonstrate how they will achieve this goal through: 1) Construction of Technology Parks in association with Universities in several key cities; 2) Changing the context of a country that supplies raw material, such as Brazil, to become an importer and developer of new technologies – mainly by technology transfer and licensing and 3) Strategically planning the entire scientific and technological sector together with the productive sector by building companies (mainly Spin-offs from the Academic Sector and Start Ups) in order to generate public-private partnerships. So the main highlight of my visit to China is that the Chinese people, as a nation, are making an impressive action plan focusing on specific areas of Technology and Innovation that are both strategic to transform a country into a world leader. Thus, here is my advice: watch it out United States of America (USA), the Chinese are coming; fast and furious…

Reposted from my Blog @ Genomic Enterprise's Website