Mr. Ma, Director of Hebi National Lighting Co., Ltd., posed the question to students from Tianjin University: “At present our company’s biggest problem is to understand the market capacity for high-end LED lighting equipment, so I hope you can help us design a plan to obtain the data and information we need.”

It was during a recently commenced course called Business Starting Practices. It was set up by the Xuanhuai School of Tianjin University, and aimed to help students understand the process of starting up a company, improving their innovation abilities and cultivating a positive mindset.

"This public optional course includes two parts: discussion and practice. We want to cultivate students' entrepreneurship by ‘proposing problems, analyzing problems and solving problems’ such as that posed by Mr. Ma. Five other business executives will be invited to be the students’ entrepreneurial mentors.” said Zheng Chundong, Deputy Dean of the Xuanhuai School.

These invited business executives come from enterprises of different industries at different stages of development. “Among them, Jiecheng Technology Co., Ltd. is a cultural enterprise; Jianlian Co., Ltd. is a service business; the Sesame Oil Project hasn’t been commercialized so far; OFO Bicycle Co., Ltd. is still in the promotion period; Hebi National Lighting Co., Ltd. has entered the transition period; Tianjin Optical and Electrical Xinya Electron Communication Technology Co., Ltd. is focusing on the emerging industry of Internet of Things.” Zheng Chundong said: “The six companies at different stages of development can provide students with a full range of entrepreneurial experience.”

Liang Haolin, a junior from the School of Precision Instrument and Optoelectronics Engineering said, “I am eager to start up my business, but I have no idea how to start. After listening to Mr. Ma, I feel clear about my future career.”