The author is Sun Jin, deputy editor-in-chief of Shenzhen Daily.

FROM Nov. 23 to 25, I visited Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) with a delegation from Shenzhen and have updated my understanding towards this city through attending eight different events. Macao is a hot land for innovation, boasting the BEYOND International Technology Innovation Expo —— which is curated with the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the United States as its blueprint, a total four State key laboratories and many innovator-minded government officials. It is striving to restructure its economy in a diversified way, to build itself as a pilot testing ground for new products and solutions of cutting-edge technologies and to become a gateway to the global technology ecosystem for science and innovation enterprises from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Scenes at the State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart City of the University of Macau.

I was deeply impressed by the State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart City, the State Key Laboratory of Analog and Mixed-Signal VLSI at the University of Macau and the State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, and the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine at the Macau University of Science of Technology. It is amazing that the 32-square-kilometer city of Macao boasts a total of four key State laboratories that specialize in the world’s most cutting-edge scientific fields such as smart city, electronic information, life science, and aerospace.

Scenes at the State Key Laboratory of Analog and Mixed-Signal VLSI of the University of Macau.

The relations between Macao and its universities make me better understand how higher education can drive a city’s growth. The transformation and development of Macao is driven by its education and talents. The city, albeit not abundant with land and nature resources, has joined hands with its people to pursue high-quality growth fueled by science, technology and innovation.

The delegation visits the State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences on Thursday.

Shenzhen, a city that also features innovation-driven growth, shares a lot in common with Macao, and has laid a solid foundation for the cooperation between those two cities. Being innovative first requires an avant-garde mindset, which means that one needs to be aware of what will happen in the future and thus, to fulfill demand accordingly. In the future, many new products and services will become boundless while imagination and creativity will take place of technology to become the major driving forces of growth. Through the BEYOND International Technology Innovation Expo in Macao, I can see the futuristic mindset of innovators.

The expo, hosted by the Macao Technology General Association, is a sci-tech innovation fair aiming to go beyond traditions, technologies and boundaries. It shows to the world Macao’s determination in developing its innovation industries and is also a powerful magnet for young startups across the world.

Fairgoers visit an online booth at the healthcare category in the metaverse exhibition hall of this year's BEYOND International Technology Innovation Expo, which was held between Sept. 21 to 27. Photo from the organizer

Nowadays, globalization has entered the new era of modular innovation led by developed countries, where innovative ideas and business models appeal more to talents, technologies and capital. As the world economy is gradually transforming from being industry-based to being knowledge-based, globalization is no longer about the homogeneous duplication of technologies, but is more about the globalization of innovation practices featuring the global allocation of innovation resources and global entrepreneurial activities.

Therefore, the World Innovative Cities Cooperation Organization (WICCO) has been initiated in response to this new era. I see from the Macao trip that many cities around the world have designated the globalization of innovation as a key strategy in their pursuit of urban transformation and new economic growth models. China, as a significant “brick” in the blueprint of global innovation, is now looking forward to more communication and exchanges with other countries, so as to better fit in with the globalization trend. Therefore, what WICCO needs to do is to bring together all the “bricks” of global innovation as a whole and thus propel the sustainable and healthy development of the world economy.

Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/JdrZIx4I21GWuRfxPj5Ltg