Lecture on Learning from the Pioneer Held Successfully

Home News Lecture on Learning from the Pioneer Held Successfully

As an important part of the Impulse Programme 2022 of Cambridge University, "Learn from the Pioneers", a lecture on innovation and entrepreneurship, was held online on the afternoon of 28 April. Participants of the Programme, together with teachers and students from Southeast University, attended the lecture.

The lecture was co-sponsored by Southeast University, one of the Centre’s partners. The CUNJC has always been maintaining a good cooperative relationship with Southeast University. The two parties have a good foundation for academic and scientific research cooperation in the fields of electronic information, biomedicine, medicine, etc.

The lecture was hosted by Professor Ye Zhirui, Director of the International Cooperation Office of Southeast University. Professor Sun An, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Professor of the School of Modern Engineering and Applied Science of Nanjing University, Dr. Lan Lidong, Former Director of the Application

Development Department of the Beijing Institute of Microelectronics Technology, and President of Beijing ZeroG Technology, and Mr.Hu Xing, Former Vice President of ZTE, Founder and President of Loongrise Avionics, were invited to share on innovation and entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial directions of the three guests are all focused on high-tech, covering cutting-edge frontier fields such as nuclear science, artificial satellites, and avionics. Starting from their personal entrepreneurial experience, the guests introduced valuable entrepreneurial insights to the participants and shared their practical and fresh entrepreneurial experience.

Academician Sun An of Nanjing University believes that entrepreneurs need to do the following things:

Choose the right shareholders

Since entrepreneurship is a long-term project, choosing like-minded, well-informed and moral partners and shareholders is crucial to the sustainability of entrepreneurship.

Choose the right product for entrepreneurship

Ordinary products that everyone can start a business can easily be copied by large companies. For start-up teams, the products developed should have technical thresholds. Professor Sun suggested to develop core technologies that can replace foreign blockades. Such products have high technical barriers, high added value and significant economic benefits, which can prompt the team to quickly develop the market and obtain the funds needed for survival and development.

Treat financing rationally and save startup expenses

Capital flow is the blood of an enterprise. Different from pure laboratory research and development, an enterprise is an independent legal entity that is responsible for its own profits and losses, and generates operating costs all the time, which requires entrepreneurs to plan carefully.

Persistent belief

Anyone with long-distance running experience knows that when you start long-distance running for a period of time, your body will feel extremely tired and weak. After this period of time, you will feel more comfortable. This state is called "critical point" or "extreme" in exercise physiology. After passing the critical point, with the advent of the "second breath", the body will feel the unprecedented pleasure and ease of running. Professor Sun analogized that the entrepreneurial journey is the same. After overcoming the difficult stage, it is possible to reverse the situation and gradually improve.

How can a scientific researcher achieve the transition to an enterprise manager? Dr. Lan Lidong 's entrepreneurial experience provides a high-quality answer.

From a pure scientific researcher to an entrepreneur who is committed to using satellites to empower urban smart management, Dr. Lan said that for entrepreneurs with a background in R&D, they first need to change their R&D-centric thinking mode. "It is true that R&D is an important job for an enterprise, but it is by no means the only job." Different from the R&D work that focuses on solving technical problems, the enterprise operation is market-oriented and product-centered, requiring entrepreneurs to uphold user thinking, give full play to the advantages of intellectual resources, and convert customer needs into technical solutions.

Dr. Lan shared the following two insights on youth entrepreneurship:

Look at the big picture

In the face of all kinds of difficulties in starting a business, we must always have firm beliefs and lofty ideals. What is the original intention of starting a business? What key problem needs to be solved? What kind of lifestyle or way of thinking can your product change? Firm answers to the above questions will enable entrepreneurs to maintain a tenacious attitude in the face of challenges.

Start from small points

Seize the small points to realize cash flow as soon as possible, enhancing the confidence of employees, shareholders, and investors, and promoting startup companies to enter a positive cycle.

Mr.Hu Xing, Founder of Loongrise Avionics, also gave his own unique insights into entrepreneurship. In his opinion, entrepreneurship is an action where a group of like-minded people come together, which requires entrepreneurs to have strong determination, tolerance and pioneering ability. At the same time, he summed up the necessary conditions for successful entrepreneurship as "finding the right people, managing money well, and getting things done".

Firstly, "find the right person". It includes both being found by others and finding others. On the one hand, how can be found by others in the information age? This requires entrepreneurs to build a brand, give themselves a distinct label, and let themselves shine so that the talents, partners, and investors they are looking for notice the entrepreneurs themselves; on the other hand, what is the right person? Hu Xing believes that a suitable entrepreneurial partner should be someone with long-termism, sense of cooperation and professional ability.

Then, "manage your money well." It is necessary to do a good job in the current and long-term planning of personal funds, corporate funds, investor funds, and government funds, handle the relationship between equity financing and debt financing, and ensure clear equity.

Finally, "get things done". Hu Xing said that for start-up teams, it is far better to concentrate on one or two small things quickly than to rush to achieve big things with limited time, energy and resources. This is conducive to turning them into resources for solving subsequent problems and helps to enhance investor confidence. "All in all, startups should look up to the stars and have grand ambitions, but also be down-to-earth, decompose the grand goals in stages, and implement them step by step."

Apply what you have learned, and combine knowledge with action. "The lecture brings together the voices of scientific research and technical experts, industrial innovation pioneers and corporate technology decision-makers. The insights derived from practical operations are of great reference value." At the end of the lecture, Professor Ye said that he hoped all the participants would gain something from the Impulse Programme and apply what they have learned to entrepreneurial practice.

2022-05-06