Chongqing- Dazu has stood apart for millennia through stone grottos home to thousands of Buddhas among a scenic world of begonia, with the heavens and earth as a witness.
Located in the west of Chongqing Municipality, Dazu is a famous cultural city with over a millennium of history, famous for the world's cultural heritage of Dazu Stone Carvings and the tradition of hardware renowned both home and abroad.
As the Dazu economy booms, the 9th China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition (Chongqing Division) Dazu Professional Tool Forging and Creative Design Competition have adopted an innovation-driven development strategy, which keeps ahead of the times in a glorious era of innovative thought.
The three first prize winners took the stage to receive their certificates and monetary awards.
On December 8th, 2020, the 9th China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition (Chongqing Division) Dazu Professional Tool Forging and Creative Design Competition officially came to an end in Chongqing. The competition was supported by the China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition Organization Committee, sponsored by the Chongqing Science and Technology Bureau and Dazu District People’s Government, and hosted by the Dazu Science and Technology Bureau and Chongqing Foreign Cultural Exchange Center.
The competition was held to strongly promote the Chengdu-Chongqing Twin City Economic Circle Development Strategy, fully implement the 4433 Development Plan, strive to become a cooperative development demonstration zone for the adjacent areas, and promote high-quality development in innovation and entrepreneurship.
This year, the contest was held to build a service platform for innovation and entrepreneurship, gather domestic and foreign projects through open competition, and cultivate future innovation seedlings. The result will be to demonstrate the unique charm of hardware culture in Dazu fully, to build Dazu into a brand for tool forging brand, and to enhance the hardware industry in general.
Enhancing the vitality and core competitiveness through innovation and entrepreneurship in hardware industry clusters will aid Dazu in achieving growth counter to impact trends of the epidemic, realized through hardware manufacturing and creation.
A packed audience at the awards ceremony venue in Dazu witnessed the exciting event.
The competition was centered around the three professional categories of knives for kitchen use, creative travel gifts, and packaging. Organizers set up three professional teams of experts to judge the works and specially invited the Japanese expert in tool design and forging Hasegawa Harubo to assist and add excitement to the competition.
In half a year since the competition began in July 2020, there have been 42 awards for outstanding works and 18 first, second and third-level prizes selected from 63 projects that advanced to the finals and underwent a course of preliminary and final screenings before professional judgment. In total, the prize money amounted to 480,000 yuan.
At the same time, professional judges and members of the public both judged single awards for best performance, ergonomics, and CMF (color, material, texture), followed by the presentation of certificates and prize money.
This year also saw the official launch of the Chongqing Dazu Professional Tool Forging and Creative Design Competition website, which published news on the competition whilst displaying excellent works for the netizens to praise. The Dazu hardware industry has taken full advantage of the internet in response to trends as it pushes the fast forward button for industrial development.
Top prize winner, Lu Kexin from the Xingchen Design Team of Chongqing University, introduced the guiding concepts behind her winning designs.
During the competition, teachers, and students from well-known domestic and foreign design companies, colleges and universities were also joined by freelance designers and other creative design enthusiasts. The participants shared a common goal through the concept of innovation-led future and talent-driven development.
The participants boldly innovated as outstanding teams vied to stand out in a series of judged roadshow events. Prominent teams included the Chongqing University of Technology, Chongqing Langjian Industrial Design Co Ltd, and the Chongqing University-Xingchen Design Team.
Three prominent works named Bailing (Lark), the Peacock King Sword, and the Begonia Timeless Beauty Gift Knife Set received unanimous recognition from the public and judges, while the ‘Children’s Knives created by Japanese contestants also stood out and achieved good results.
In the competition, contestants integrated big data and artificial intelligence perfectly with the striving essence of Dazu culture, which fully displayed the creative inspiration of participants, which blossomed through their works. As a result, the competition left behind many wonderful scenes and unforgettable moments.
A new framework for developing new innovative designs in the hardware industry was signed during the awards ceremony.
The design provides a source of running vitality for production, while the latter allows for successful transformation in return. In the year 2019, three works were turned to an application by tool enterprises in Dazu District, and many works are currently under negotiation this year in 2020.
At the same time, award-winning works have attracted the close attention of relevant departments from outside the city, hardware enterprises, cultural innovation companies, and industry insiders.
The competition has served as a bridge in communication between government, enterprises, colleges, universities, and science and technology service organizations to realize collaboration in innovation and research.
It has also served as an open platform to support the fields of innovative competition, entrepreneurial incubation, business exchange, and resource integration. The competition has gradually formed a ‘Three-link chain’ system of technical services focused on investment cooperation, intellectual property rights, and outcome transformation.
Deputy director of the Municipal Science and Technology Bureau delivered a speech at the competition awards ceremony.
Driven by the 9th China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition (Chongqing Division) Dazu Professional Tool Forging and Creative Design Competition, Dazu will pay more attention to domain planning in respect to the grand scale to achieve overall progress, where technology provides the main productive force, and innovation furthers development as the main driving force.
Innovation and entrepreneurship will continue to be fostered in the interests of development and sound ecology in the hardware industry, as well as strengthening exchange and interaction with advanced regions at home and abroad. The sharing of innovative resources will be promoted so that ever more wonderful innovative and entrepreneurial dreams may take root in Dazu, in addition to polishing the golden banner of ‘Dazu Hardware’ in the unswerving endeavor for development in science and technology.
As a result, Dazu is building a new development highland for the internationally renowned industry with unique characteristics.