Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province, has launched a big data entrepreneurship competition to stimulate participation in the city's already booming high-tech industry.

"Entrepreneurship has burst onto the scene in Guizhou province, as the Internet expands opportunities available to young people in the one of the least-developed regions in China," said Deputy Mayor Xu Hao on Tuesday at a news conference about the competition in Zhongguancun, Beijing's technology hub. The event is being put together in coordination with Zhongguancun.

Last year, more than 300 Guizhou teams, mostly IT startups, participated in a national entrepreneurship competition held by the Ministry of Science and Technology. It was the largest turnout of teams among southwest provinces.

"Thanks to the Internet and open source, we can develop our product in Guiyang, not in the big cities like Beijing or Shanghai," said Yu Chuan, 37, founder of Team Flex, a company that entered the competition last year with 3-D-printed air drones.

Team flex, which began with $560,000 from the internationally known crowdfunding website Kickstarter, is now selling drones worldwide and has staff members from the United States and Canada working in their 100-square-meter Guiyang office.

The Internet has given Guiyang and Guizhou a great opportunity, as the development of the big-data industry - including cloud services for intelligent transportation, logistics and tourism - has been written in Guizhou's annual work report in 2015, Xu said. By 2017, Guiyang will be China's first city offering free wireless Internet connection.

Although Guizhou is one of the lowest-ranked provinces in gross domestic product and GDP per capita, its cool climate, sufficient power supply and transportation networks are advantages in attracting data centers and cloud computing projects, Xu said.

"Amid the growth in people starting businesses in Guiyang, we have launched our own competition, and we hope the startups will develop the big data industry with government," Xu said.

Products from outstanding competition entrants will be displayed in a Big Data Expo to be held in Guiyang in May. The city government has promised to help shortlisted teams to raise money and offer favorable policies for them to start businesses.

IT startups have lower upfront costs, and they also have fast growth and make fortunes in a short time, said Zhang Yichi, a professor of entrepreneurship at Guanghua School of Management of Peking University and director of the school's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

"The Internet has made the world accessible. Resources that were once unavailable in remote mountainous areas now are available," Zhang said.

Wang Wei, head of Longmaster Information & Technology Co Ltd in Guiyang, said more Guiyang natives are returning home for jobs.

"If you could be connected with the world through a cable, why would you stay in big cities and endure high housing prices and pollution?" he said.

SU JIANGYUAN and ZHAO KAI contributed to this story.

Contact the writer at pengyining@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/07/2015 page7)