IASP Beijing - the opening day

The IASP Beijing official Opening Ceremony took place today, with IASP Director General Luis Sanz as master of ceremonies, introducing IASP and Chinese representatives.

IASP President Jean François Balducchi spoke to welcome delegates, as did Deputy Secretary General of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology Jianpei Xu, and the Vice Mayor of Beijing, Zhanjiang Sui. The Keynote speech was delivered by Zhonglin Wang, Director and Chief Scientist at the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems. He described the huge potential for powering small devices with, for example, the movement of the human body, and other cutting-edge technologies.

The day's plenary sessions covered the impact of technology, where speakers from the UK, Sweden and China shared their regional experiences of innovation improving the quality of life, as well as the past and future of manufacturing. Here speakers from Hong Kong, the UK, Germany and Russia compared approaches to commercialising technology, the role of accelerators and the impact of government policies.

IASP Chief Operations Officer Ebba Lund presented the association's highlights, with a look at what IASP has been doing over the past year, before announcing the winners of the Inspiring Solutions Programme 2015. Nine entries had been shortlisted by an expert panel of judges, before IASP members voted to choose the three they found the most innovative and most inspiring.

We are delighted to announce that the winners are:

1. Surrey Research Park, United Kingdom, for the Evolving Knowledge Transfer programme
2. Bilkent CYBERPARK, Turkey, for the Cyberpark Accelerator Programme (CAP) 
3. TECNOPUC, Brazil, for the Acceleration of Synergies at TECNOPUC

We will circulate full details about these winning solutions shortly as well as launching a new edition of the Inspiring Solutions programme - keep an eye on your inbox and the IASP website for more details!

It was a day of launches and announcements, with Alexander Chernov opening the website for IASP Moscow in 2016 for President Jean Francois Balducchi to make the very first delegate registration at www.IASP2016moscow.com.

IASP Vice President Josep Piqué, Spain, and Anna Nikina from the Skolkovo Foundation, Russia, also announced that they will be writing a new IASP book, Areas of Innovation in a global world: theory and practice. Many IASP members and innovation leaders are among the co-authors.

A B2B matchmaking session also took place, and IASP immediate past president Rick Weddle said a few words as innovative companies from STPs across the world signed partnership agreements with their Chinese counterparts.

The day finished with a visit to the Beijing Expo Garden Park, a beautiful landscaped garden built on a former industrial waste site and which nicely illustrated some of the themes of urban redevelopment touched upon in the scientific programme. Delegates enjoyed dinner and some traditional Chinese entertainment including music, sand painting and shadow puppets.