On September 19, the finals of Fifth National College Students’ “Internet Plus” Express Industry Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition came to a successful conclusion at Shijiazhuang Posts and Telecommunications Technical College (hereinafter referred to as SPTC). After fierce competition in several parts including on-site defense and expert review, 29 teams from 17 units finally won 10 gold awards, 20 silver awards, and 10 excellent organization awards. SPTC was presented with the “Excellent Organization Award” and the “Special Contribution Award” with all its four entries wining gold. Yang Chunguang, Deputy Director of the State Post Bureau, Li Pizheng, Deputy Secretary of the Leading Party Members’ Group of China Post Group, and Yang Yong, Director of Hebei Education Department attended the final awarding ceremony and delivered a speech respectively.

Yang Chunguang pointed out, the National College Students’ “Internet Plus” Express Industry Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition has become one of the brand events in the postal industry with the strong support from Ministry of Education and under the direct leadership of the State Post Bureau. In recent years, the competition has become more and more influential, inspiring college students’ enthusiasm for innovation and entrepreneurship. It has become an incubator for contemporary young people to get close to the postal express field, to make inventions and innovations and enhance their abilities in the practice of innovation and entrepreneurship. The high-quality industry-education cooperation platform built by the competition has increasingly become an important channel to enhance teacher-student exchanges, promote business and product innovation, accelerate technology application and promotion, gather creativity and wisdom from all the parties, and promote high-quality development of the postal express industry.

Li Pizheng mentioned, as the “national team” of the postal sector, China Post has always played an important role in promoting the development of national economy and society and guaranteeing citizens’ communication right. The current integration of big data, artificial intelligence, mobile Internet, cloud computing with traditional industries has continuously generated new drivers, promoted new forms of business and new development. Technological innovation has become the core competitiveness of such industries as finance, express and logistics, and e-commerce. He pointed out that the competition built a high-quality industry-education cooperation platform, providing a stage for college students to display their talents in innovation and entrepreneurship. A number of innovative and entrepreneurial works with creativity, connotation and application value stood out, reflecting the ability and level of innovation and entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions and showing the vitality and enthusiasm of contemporary college students in innovation and entrepreneurship. He said China Post would strengthen cooperation with higher education institutions in building innovation and entrepreneurship platforms, conducting school-enterprise joint technological innovation and scientific and technological talents development, achieving a win-win situation for the transformation of research outcomes and the enhancement of postal technological strength. At the same time, he asked the organizer of this contest, SPTC, to continue to adhere to the school orientation of “rooted in the post, serving the primary level and contributing to society”, continue to deepen the integration of industry and education, school-enterprise cooperation, cultivate more high-quality professionals with innovative and entrepreneurial spirit for the industry and enterprises, and contribute to the high-quality development and the second rise of China Post.

The theme of the competition was “striving for the dream of innovation and entrepreneurship, writing the gorgeous chapter of life”, it was guided by the National Postal Industry Talent Work Leading Group, hosted by the Guidance Center of Professional Skills Testing of the State Post Bureau, organized by SPTC and co-organized by China Express Association, China Post and Express News and Hebei Provincial Postal Administration. The competition has also received special support from Cainiao Network Technology Co., Ltd, the National Teaching Advisory Committee on Postal Professional Education, the Strategic Alliance of Technology Innovation in Postal Industry. The competition adopted two-level competition system of college preliminary competition and national finals, and set three types of competitions including innovative product design, workflow optimization, and entrepreneurial plan implementation.

Different from the past, due to the impact of the epidemic, related activities in the preliminary stage of this year were carried out through video conferences, online presentations and remote defenses. Since the competition was officially launched in July this year, 129 colleges and universities from 26 provinces (districts, cities) across the country have submitted 283 entries. The contest attracted some well-known universities such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and other industry colleges and universities. The number of participating undergraduate universities exceeded 100 with the number of works reaching a new high. The participating works focused on security, greening, poverty reduction and health, which were close to industry and corporate practices and were more down to earth.