Stay Innovative and Promote Application | 2019 "Wanhua Cup" National Collegiate Innovative Design Contest

On September 27, "Wanhua Cup" National Collegiate Innovative Design Contest 2019 was held in Yantai of Shandong Province. The event brought together leaders and experts from the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation (CPCIF) and Wanhua Chemical Group Co., Ltd., as well as faculty and student representatives from various universities.
 
Mr. Jian Zeng, the consultant from CPCIF, said in his speech in the event that since the founding of the People's Republic of China 70 years ago, the development of China's petroleum and chemical industry has made tremendous contributions to safeguarding our country's energy security, facilitating our industrial and agricultural production, and meeting people's needs in daily life, among others. That being the case, we have been confronted with the obvious issue of industrial structural imbalance, which indicates that it is of vital importance to develop our technological innovation capabilities and build a talent pool with innovative application competence.
 
Dr. Weiqi Hua, executive vice president of Wanhua Chemical, also elaborated on the significance of corporate innovation and the important role of school-enterprise cooperation in the application of scientific research achievements. Participants from all sides stated that the "Wanhua Cup" National Collegiate Innovative Design Contest provided an open platform for the integration of fundamental and applied researches, which served not only as a stage for young students to demonstrate their talent, but also as a good example of respecting talents and school-enterprise cooperation.
 
During the event, twelve teams from various universities across the country presented their innovative technological researches on topics related with daily lives, ranging from medical care, environmental protection, automobiles, and energy. Their presentations have drawn long and loud applause from audience. During the question-and-answer session, the review panel made detailed inquiries and offered professional guidance on the reaction mechanism, experimental methods, creativity, and application and industrialization possibilities of these works. The championship went to the project of "Starch-Based Biodegradable Composite Film" by the team named "starch-man" from East China University of Science and Technology, who won the highest total score.
 
The Competition, which lasted for 4 months, has received nearly 1 hundred applications from more than 20 colleges and universities nationwide and attracted over 200 participants. The applicant projects covered all aspects of life, ranging from medical care, environmental protection, automobiles, energy, and others, among which environmental protection, energy conservation, and emission reduction are the most favorites. It could be seen that college students were highly enthusiastic about how to use technological innovation to improve human life. The event helped showcase many excellent innovative achievements and provided possibilities for its transformation to products.
 
Additionally, the competition functioned as a unique way to identify, appraise, and recruit talents. It also worked to bring industry federations, universities, and enterprises more closely together, greatly promoted the industry-university-research cooperation, which made it possible for transformation and upgrading of the whole industry, and facilitated the transformation of scientific research achievements from universities.
 
As one of Wanhua Chemical's many brand events on corporate social responsibility, the "Wanhua Cup" Innovation Application Competition has been held for six consecutive years with participation of nearly 2,000 college students. It reached various universities all over the country in terms of its coverage and greatly helped stimulate innovative thinking and practical innovation capabilities of college students. Wanhua Chemical will continue to unite all concerned parties to push further scientific research and innovation, all for our great mission of "advancing chemistry, transforming lives".