On October 16, the finals of the "2021 Belt & Road and BRICS Skills Development & Technology Innovation Competition — Mini-program Application Development", co-hosted by the Chinese Council of the BRICS Business Council, China Association of Inventions, the Chinese and Foreign Cultural Exchange Center of the Ministry of Education (MOE), and undertaken by the Chinese Skills Development Working Group of the Skills Development Working Group, kicked off at Shenzhen Polytechnic.

A scene of the opening ceremony.

The competition attracted 72 contestants from many higher and secondary vocational colleges around the country. After two days of fierce competition, the higher vocational college group picked out five first prizes, 10 second prizes, and 15 third prizes, while the secondary vocational college group picked out one first prize, one second prize, and two third prizes. Two contestants guided by Mr. Wang Xianchen from Shenzhen Polytechnic bagged the top two places and both won the first prize. According to the competition notice, the two contestants have priority to participate in the overseas competitions in person or online.

The Belt & Road and BRICS Skills Development & Technology Innovation Competition aims to put into practice the important instructions of President Xi Jinping on skills development, make better efforts to carry forward the spirit of model workers, the spirit of work, and craftsmanship in the society, inspire more workers especially the young generation to improve themselves and make contributions to the motherland through skills, and cultivate more highly skilled talent and craftsmen, ultimately promoting China's employment, entrepreneurship, and high-quality development. This competition drew wide attention across the society.

Xu Jianling delivers a speech.

At the opening ceremony, President Xu Jianling of Shenzhen Polytechnic expressed his hopes of finding, cultivating, and selecting talent through the competition to "advance education through competition", push forward with educational and teaching reforms in relevant specialties and the transition of teaching resources, to further deepen industry-education integration and university-enterprise cooperation in mini-program application development and foster more future-oriented skill talents.

Zhang Huimin, director of the Information Center of Education Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality, said in her speech, the competition was held in Shenzhou, benefitting from Shenzhen Polytechnic's outstanding teaching strength and Tencent's industrial influence. Moreover, with the regional information technology industry at the core, relevant colleges had worked together and actively striven to empower China's vocational education through the competition's positive effects and meanwhile develop the competition into a people-to-people exchange brand to promote the communication between young people at home and abroad.

Song Xiaoqin delivers a speech.

Song Xiaoqin, deputy secretary-general of the Belt & Road and BRICS International Alliance for Skills Development (IASDBR) and director of the Domestic Competition Division of the Belt & Road and BRICS Skills Development & Technology Innovation Competition, said in her speech that this competition is a major mission of the Chinese Skills Development Working Group and IASDBR and also provides important support for other work.

Business General Manager Xu Zhangliang of Tencent Education indicated, exploring industry-education integration and facilitating the cultivation of innovative and digital talent underlie Tencent's industrial internet strategy. Tencent Industrial Internet Lecture is committed to training digital talent and providing versatile talent training solutions for university faculty and students, government staff, enterprises, technical experts, and individual developers.

General Manager Xiao Maocai of Lifeng Technology (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd. said, as a core service provider of Tencent Education, Lifeng Technology focuses on the in-depth integration between information technology and education & teaching and the new-generation information technology education, empowers the computer specialty and engineering specialty, and facilitates universities and colleges to improve the construction of specialties and specialty clusters. He added, it is an honor to provide technical support for this event; meanwhile, Lifeng Technology can learn a lot from the competition.

The competition venue.

"The BRICS Skills Development & Technology Innovation Competition is an international competition recognized by the Preparatory Committee of the BRICS Summit, filed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, and approved by the BRICS Business Council. After four years of development, the competition has become a long-term cooperation mechanism to promote skills development, technical and skilled talent cultivation, and people-to-people exchanges among BRICS." Song Xiaoqin said in her speech at the closing ceremony. She indicated that the Mini-program Application Development event was closely built around the industrial internet strategy and on the wide application of mini-programs in vertical industries and the typical job skills, aiming to cultivate innovative technical and skilled talents in the field of mini-program application development. She hoped that the Mini-program Application Development event could play a technical leading role and cultivate more excellent technical and skilled talents by replacing training with competition and conducting education through competition.

(College of Electronic Information and Automation)