Growing industry demands top level talents
In the past seven years the internet of things industry has gone from strength to strength, and to cope with its growth the demand for top level IoT talents has risen dramatically.
Nowhere has this growth been seen more vividly than in the city of Wuxi in East China’s Jiangsu province, which was made the country’s national demonstration base for IoT in 2009.
As of the end of 2016 there were more than 2,000 IoT companies throughout the city, generating revenue exceeding 210 billion yuan ($31.9 billion) in 2016, according to the Wuxi government. As a result, the industry now employs 150,000 people in the city.
Li Xiaomin, Wuxi Party secretary, emphasized the importance that attracting the right talent plays in social development at a talent-themed summit held in the city on Aug 26. Li said there are 1.6 million professionals in the city, among them, 110,000 are qualified to a high level, and 215 are from the Thousand Talents Program ---- a national recruitment initiative to attract experts from overseas.
“The rapidly-developing high-tech and advanced technology industries in Wuxi, such as microelectronics, IoT and supercomputing, have further raised the need for highlevel professionals,” Li said.
Wuxi has undertaken several steps to attract IoT talents in recent years, including initiating the Taihu Lake Talent Plan in 2016.
The city has also enacted measures to ensure that it is developing high-level talents at home, establishing more than 10 specific IoT professionals training incubators and demonstration zones. Institutes such as the IoT Engineering School of Jiangnan University, Sensing China Windows (National IoT Exhibition Center) and the Jiangsu R&D Center for IoT, are all ensuring a steady flow of local workers.
Founded in 2010, the IoT Engineering School of Jiangnan University, the first of its kind in China, has educated more than 3,200 students to bachelor level and 800 postgraduates. According to the school, of its three rounds of graduates, about 70 to 80 percent of them have landed jobs in the IoT industry.
“As an emerging industry, IoT demands the students have strong practical abilities and innovative thinking, as well keeping in touch with the development of the industry,” said Xiong Weili, deputy dean of the IoT Engineering School of Jiangnan University.
For the past four years, the school has carried out a “distinguished engineer training plan”. Students who join the plan take part in three years’ study and a one-year internship at cooperating IoT companies. The students must report to two supervisors, a professor and an engineer, who will guide them during the study.
Yang Enhui, a professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada, told China Daily that IoT development needs innovative talents with solid basic knowledge and skills.
“It’s a time of many opportunities and challenges, with the explosive growth of IoT enterprises, the youth should be patient and build a solid foundation and accumulate knowledge, as the IoT industry connects with many advanced science and technology industries,” Yang said.
According to a government plan, there will be more IoT engineering training bases established in China, following Wuxi’s IoT talent training model. Contact the writers at xuyinjuan@chinadaily. com.cn