Campaign brings in country's best talents to boost tech development

In an era of technology-powered development, the shortage of well-educated and well-trained professionals is often a major bottleneck hindering the local development of many lower-tier cities in China, especially in the country's central and western regions.

To tackle this challenge, thepient of the service in 2021. Since then it has welcomed 18 professionals from the nation's top universities and prestigious research institutions.

A number of cities in the province have been the beneficiaries of this campaign over the two years, as these high-profile professionals have brought in cutting-edge sciences Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the Communist Youth League initiated the Doctoral Service Group, a major campaign to boost the development of central and western regions, as early as 1999.

Since then, thousands of professionals bearing PhD or higher degrees and specializing in technologies and management have been assigned to the targeted regions.

North China's Shanxi province became a reci and technologies, innovative ideas on business or government operations, and a channel for networking with a broader base of talents.

Zhou Bin, for instance, is a researcher holding a PhD degree at the No 5 Research Institution of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. He has been engaged in research on the digitalized transformation of traditional industries for many years.

He was assigned to the Shanxi Transformation and Comprehensive Reform Demonstration Zone in February. Over the past eight months, he helped to found a promotional center for digitalized transformation at the zone and proposed detailed plans to engage businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, in this transformation.

Liu Wei from Hubei province-based Wuhan University is a specialist in integrated circuits. He was assigned to a post in charge of high-tech development in the city of Xinzhou.

Over the past months, Liu has made extensive research tours of local enterprises to study their development status and get informed of their demands.

Xinzhou is an emerging hub of Shanxi's semiconductor industry. Recognizing this industry in the city needs extraordinary support in terms of technology and professionals, Liu arranged several tours of Wuhan, capital city of Hubei province, for business delegations from Xinzhou.

In Wuhan, the delegations reached agreements with Wuhan University for establishing joint research facilities and platforms for personnel training. They have also talked on building cooperative ties with local businesses.

Using digital technologies to upgrade coal mines is an important part of the economic transformation and energy revolution campaigns in Shanxi. With this mission in mind, Shi Lei from Northwestern Polytechnical University based in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, was assigned to Shuozhou, a major coal-mining city in Shanxi province.

During his stay of less than one year, Shi helped to draft a digital-empowered development plan for the city. The plan highlights the upgrading of coal mines with new information technologies. To date, the city saw 44 coal-mining shafts complete 5G-connected and intelligent upgrades.

The national Doctoral Service Group campaign is also inspirational for Shanxi when it comes to allocating advantageous talent resources provincewide.

In 2021, Shanxi launched its own doctoral service group program. Over the two years, a total of 115 high-profile professionals from the province's top universities and research institutions have been dispatched to cities and counties that need support of talent and technology.

Chen Junqi contributed to this story.