Foreign experts visit Weihai's enterprises, and exchange ideas on industrial innovation. (PHOTO: Weihai Science and Technology Bureau)

By ZHANGWei & CHEN Chunyou

The Foreign Expert Station, founded in 2020 in Shandong's Weihai city, is a comprehensive service platform to improve communication between foreign experts and local enterprises. It has three brand  activities, including online meetings, industrial park tours, and lectures.

To date, 207 high-level foreign experts have been recommended to local employers through the station.

Common development

In order to better serve local enterprises, the station uses online meetings, which provide a link between high-level foreign experts and Weihai's key enterprises, business parks, major R&D platforms, universities and  institutes.

As an example, the platform has allowed researchers at Weihai Boyi Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. to hold many online meetings with their Korean counterparts. The two sides exchange ideas on the development and application of composite microbial flora technology in the production process, and reach a point of cooperation.

The station has also recommended three Japanese experts to the local Wendeng Maxpower Tool Group Co., Ltd. Through several rounds of online discussions on the technical improvement of electroplating coating, automatic production lines, and process improvement of electroplating chromium, a satisfactory solution was finally reached for Maxpower.

New ideas

More than 1,600 foreign experts are employed by Weihai city every year. To make full use of the skills of foreign experts in business management and technological innovation, the station introduced an industrial park tour program that helps foreign experts to become familiar with the characteristics of local industrial development, and deepens exchanges and cooperation.

As a result, a lot of useful ideas were proposed by the foreign experts. Some experts suggested that the food enterprises can explore ways of highly utilizing the low value-added products, while others said that for enterprises to operate more efficiently there was a need to remove burdensome red tape.

According to Jun Yousik, a Korean expert, these programs help learn about Weihai's industrial layout and innovation initiatives in the areas of intelligent equipment, new-generation information technology and special materials, noting that the platform helps them to use professional expertise to serve local industries, from which the experts also benefited.

Innovative capability

In April 2021, the foreign expert's lecture program was officially opened. More than 30 entrepreneurs and researchers attended the lecture. Qin Zhiliang, a Singaporean expert in artificial intelligence (AI) and signal processing, and the winner of Qilu Friendship Award, gave a presentation on the development situation of AI, the application scenario of AI algorithms in related industrial fields, as well as its future prospects. He also had in-depth discussions and exchanges with the participating enterprises on intelligent technology for water quality testing and automation equipment manufacturing.

Senior experts in various fields have been invited to share their theoretical and practical experience, exchange ideas and explore cooperation with local entrepreneurs and scientists. Fourteen lectures have been held to date, benefiting more than 1,000 entrepreneurs and researchers, further stimulating the innovation vitality of enterprises and effectively promoting industrial development.

Online meetings connect people from every corner of the world, industrial park tours gather consensus from all parties, and open lectures spark innovation. All these events enrich the vision of expats, open a new dimension for them to participate in Weihai's development, and push their dialogue and interaction with the local enterprises and industries to new heights.