The second day of the conference was jump-started by a discussion with Steve Wozniak, who was extremely optimistic and confident about jumping into entrepreneurship – a contrast with remarks made the previous day.
Perspectives on the role of financial markets in facilitating innovation and entrepreneurship in China that followed this in subsequent talks were particularly interesting. Laura Cha, Chairman of the HK Financial Services Development Council, pointed out that FinTech is now growing fastest in China – but perhaps not so surprising in a country of 800 million mobile users. It was also pointed out that China has abundant smaller-level investors, in contrast to many developed countries.
Several successful Chinese entrepreneurs joined a later panel to discuss the evolution of their own enterprises. Charles Zhang, founder and chairman of Sohu, was particularly memorable, speaking about his decision to stand up to Google’ s allegedly copied use of his pinyin-type method, and his wider efforts to obtain market share in an internet search space previously dominated by Baidu.
Dr Wang, President of Greater China for Frost & Sullivan, highlighted that there are‘ few sunset industries, only sunset companies’. Perhaps bearing this out, we learnt that 12,000 new businesses are registered daily now in China, a welcome sign but also a source of potential concern: multiple panellists cautioned about jumping into entrepreneurship without a clear game-plan.
Nevertheless, facilitating this, 500 new incubators were created in 2015, with funding of $ 37 bn. By the end of 2016 this is expected to have risen to 2000, and an estimated 25,000 by 2030.
The conference concluded with an interview with Robert Zoellick, to whom we had a chance to pose a question about social entrepreneurship. To hear his response, follow the YouTube link below. https:// youtu. be / 8TU209EPS _ w