Science and technology minister obsessed with 'makers'

China's top science and technology official said creativity is key to tackling the economic slowdown as good ideas can produce jobs to recharge the growth engine.[Special coverage]

Wan Gang, CPPCC member and Minister of Science and Technology, urged immediate support to graduate student "makers" to provide space to build their own businesses during a CPPCC group discussion on Saturday.

A new catchphrase "maker" was found in the government report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang at the opening ceremony of the NPC session, referring to self-employed, Internet-based finance practitioners working alone or in groups with DIY ideas.

China has an average of 12 million new job hunters annually and nearly three quarters are university graduates. About 7.5 million graduate students are predicted to join the job market this year.

"What we can do to help them is simple - a desk, Internet access and a place to rest," said the minister, referring to a Shenzhen-based maker salon called "firewood" built on a discarded 60 sq m workshop. There, more than 90 young "makers" in groups of two or three huddle at computer desks. There are temporary bunks for those who work late into the night.

Wan said he was with the premier in the firewood salon during a tour in Shenzhen and the premier gave a "like" to the salon then urged all departments concerned to form a guideline document to support the "makers" group.

"I was moved by these young people and got obsessed by the idea," said the minister who has an auto engineering background. "I even came up with ideas of becoming a 'maker' myself during the tour in Shenzhen".

Take-out ordering website and cell phone app v5.ele.me, built by a group of Shanghai Jiaotong University graduates, took three years to cover more than 200 cities and now has 1 billion orders daily on average.

"The ordering website is based on high technology such as GPS, data map, online payment and delivery. All of these create jobs," said Wang taking the website as an example.

The minister said there are more than 1,600 science and technology enterprise incubators and 115 university science and technology parks under the ministry nationwide, providing jobs for 1.75 million.