On the afternoon of March 6, 2023, World Innovative Cities Cooperation Organization (hereinafter referred to as “WICCO”), which is being promoted by Shenzhen, other innovation cities and institutions across the globe, held a new event this year -- Innovation Policy And Practice Conference at Wu Zhou Guest House Shenzhen.

With the theme of “Advancing Collaboration on Scientific and Technological Innovation, Cultivating New Drives of Economic Growth”, the event advocated international and inter-city cooperation to enhance innovation capacity, shape development advantages and cultivate new growth drivers. Mayors of global innovation cities, heads of well-known technology enterprises, scientific research and venture capitals, and representatives of international organizations in China gathered online and offline to discuss innovation, seek cooperation, and build an international innovation ecosystem.

Yao Ren, Deputy Secretary General of Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government

Deputy Secretary General Yao Ren delivered a speech. He said that in recent years, Shenzhen has steadfastly implemented the strategy of innovation-driven development, established and continuously improved the whole-process innovation ecological chain, and accelerated to the global scientific and technological innovation hub. Today, Shenzhen’s innovation momentum has been greatly enhanced, its innovation vitality has been fully unleashed, and its innovation ecology has been continuously optimized. In the future, Shenzhen will continue to create an open, just, fair and non-discriminatory environment for innovation and development, strive to break down barriers to the flow of innovation factors such as professional knowledge, technology and human resources, connect global innovation resources, fully flow innovation sources, and produce more practical cooperation.

Igarashi Tatsuo, Mayor of Tsukuba City, Japan

Mayor Tachiyaki Igarashi introduced the Tsukuba Super Science City plan and seek more international innovation cooperation based on this plan to incubate and absorb high quality innovation projects worldwide and jointly promote the construction of Tsukuba Super Science City.

Kizo Hisamoto, Mayor of Kobe City, Japan

Mayor Kizo Kudoh introduced the sharing of Kobe City’s experience in improving and perfecting urban governance through innovative applications in the fields of emergency response, healthcare, and green and low-carbon.

Krista Adams, Deputy Mayor of Brisbane, Australia

Deputy Mayor Christa Adams gave a brief introduction to Brisbane’s urban governance and the application of science and technology innovation in industries such as life and health and green energy, and advocate for international innovation cooperation to promote sustainable urban development.

Michela Favaro, Deputy Mayor of Turin, Italy

Deputy Mayor Michela Favaro gave an overview of the city’s Torino City Lab and Torino Social Innovation projects, which promote an open, inclusive, public-private, local, global and innovative development model that provides innovative solutions for urban governance and helps Turin to become an international hub for innovation and smart city applications.

Mario Rubert, Director of City Promotion, Barcelona, Spain

Mr. Mario Rubert proposed that innovation should be a pillar of social and urban wealth, making the city more competitive and sustainable. Barcelona has been recognized as the European Capital of Innovation for its use of new technologies in urban governance to better connect the city with its citizens. Shenzhen and Barcelona are both open and innovative cities, and like other cities around the world they are seeking new solutions, new cohesion and new alliances to address common challenges. Barcelona is ready to work with other cities, including Shenzhen, to develop more dialogue and cooperation in areas such as smart cities and green low carbon.

Wang Jianfeng, Vice President, President of Public and Government Affairs Department, Huawei Technologies Co.

Mr. Wang Jianfeng delivered a keynote speech entitled “Continuous Innovation, Open Cooperation, and High Quality Development”. He explained Huawei’s observations and thoughts on the digital era, and put forward three major trends for the future: low-carbonization, electrification and intelligence, in conjunction with the white paper “Smart World 2030” released by Huawei.

Weiran Zhou Partner, Global Technology, Media and Communications Industry Leader, PwC

Mr. Weiran Zhou introduced that PwC conducted an economic survey of global C-level personnel, and despite weakening market confidence in the global economy, Asia Pacific CEOs are still relatively optimistic about the domestic economic outlook. WICCO would be able to combine the advantages of regional synergistic development, form an important bridge for innovation development in various countries, penetrate the market economic development with innovation cooperation, and promote exchanges and cooperation with the international community with innovation cooperation as the core driver.

Alessandro Golombiewski Teixeira Distinguished Professor, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Visiting Professor, School of Economics and Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen)

Professor Fuxin gave a keynote speech entitled “Strengthening International Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation, Looking into the Future of Urban Innovation”. He introduced that science, technology and innovation can help achieve sustainable urban development by taking into account the economic, environmental and social dimensions of urbanization,

Masakazu Takasu, world-renowned maker, guest lecturer of Waseda University, Japan, partner of Switch Science, a leading open source company

Mr. Takasu elaborated on the development history and advantages of Shenzhen’s hardware supply chain industry, and further highlight the characteristics of Shenzhen as the “Global Hardware Silicon Valley”.