Do you have creative ideas that you’d love to share with others?
Do you have ambitious research or entrepreneurial plans you wish could come true?
Do you have a passion for joining college students innovation competitions on behalf of our beloved DKU?
If any of the above impresses you, please consider this cordial invitation from the DKU iNNOVATION iNCUBATOR (Dii) to join our 2023 College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program—the Dachuang Program!
We’re welcoming creative proposals from all DKUers.
Why do you need to participate
Learn to have entrepreneurial thinking and mindset
You don’t have to be an entrepreneur, but the entrepreneurial experience will add new options and possibilities to your life choices. Participating in our innovation and entrepreneurship incubation will help you develop a differentiated mindset. It is often important to think and act unconventionally outside the confines of an organization’s established guidelines. This innovative thinking is only truly present when a person has gone through the entrepreneurial process and can actually implement his or her ideas in this way.
Develop a sense of ownership and the grit to take responsibility
As an employee, you may often be hesitant to take steps to proactively change something. But when you think like a company shareholder, you will be proactive in doing all the things that are in the best interest of your organization’s growth. That’s what entrepreneurs actually think. This sense of ownership and responsibility comes from being able to think like an entrepreneur about all aspects of your business operations. The challenging and uncertain journey of entrepreneurship requires more passion and grit to persevere than most other activities. This grit is probably the most important factor in one’s long-term success.
Preparing for the future
Your future potential will depend largely on learning how to respond to the challenges of constant change. You will need to be innovative, adaptable, resilient, and flexible in order to cope with an evolving future. the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Incubation will allow you to learn:
- How to collaborate and work with teams
- How to solve real, complex problems that have no clear answers
- How to use curiosity and creativity to find innovative solutions to difficult problems
- And to accept failure as part of the growth process
How to participate?
Want to join us? Gather your buddies and form a well-defined team to write your innovation/entrepreneurship proposal.
Please pay attention to the following important dates:
Proposal Submission
Please scan the QR code and fill in the information to apply!

We are looking forward to seeing your brilliant ideas and outstanding performance in your projects!
About Dii
DKU iNNOVATION iNCUBATOR (Dii) is the flagship program of the DKU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative (DKU InE). It serves as an engine for cultivating and supporting start-up ideas across the DKU campus. We welcome a new batch of student start-up teams to Dii each semester. Over the next two years, they receive resources and support such as start-up funding, professional mentoring, lab space and equipment, and systematic training on customer/user research, product/service development and management, marketing and branding, business development and scaling, and business philanthropy to enable them to innovative ways to identify valuable business opportunities and turn ideas into reality.
About Dachuang
Since 2015, the Ministry of Education of China has started the “Dachuang” training program, which aims to support university students to participate in scientific research, technology development, entrepreneurship simulation, entrepreneurial practice and other innovative and entrepreneurial activities at an earlier stage; strengthen students’ innovative and entrepreneurial abilities, enhance the spirit of innovation, creative thinking, and entrepreneurial awareness. The program types include: Innovation Training Program (ITP), Entrepreneurship Training {rogram (ETP), and Entrepreneurship Practice Program (EPP). Projects are not limited to disciplines, but are innovative and exploratory, and have a high degree of feasibility and auditability of results.
Projects supported by the Dachuang program will be student-led. Dachuang Program provides funding for students who participate in innovative research under the guidance of faculty. The kinds of programs include: Innovation Training Programs (ITP), Entrepreneurship Training Programs (ETP), and Entrepreneurship Practice Programs (EPP). The programs should be closely related to technological innovation or entrepreneurial incubation. The disciplines and majors of delivered projects will not be limited, as long as the topics are innovative and exploratory, the plans are highly feasible, and the results are available for scrutiny.
Innovation Training Programs (ITP) refer to a student team or individual independently completing innovative research project design, research preparation, project implementation, research report writing, academic exchange and other work under the guidance of tutors, including national-level and provincial-level programs.
Entrepreneurship Training Programs (ETP) refer to a student team dividing work roles between team members under the guidance of a mentor, writing a business plan, conducting feasibility studies, simulating business operations, participating in business practice, writing an entrepreneurial report, and so on.
Entrepreneurship Practice Programs (EPP) is an innovative product or service with a market prospect proposed by a team of students, under the joint guidance of the university supervisor, based on the results of previous innovation training projects and entrepreneurship training projects, and using them as the basis for entrepreneurial practice activities.
The DKU iNNOVATION iNCUBATOR (Dii) operates and manages all projects, and Dii supports the academic guidance, project funding, and other resources needed for the projects.
What We Offer
Guidelines for Innovation/Entrepreneurship Proposals
should include the following:
1. Reason for application (including your own knowledge, strengths, interests, existing practical innovation achievements, etc.)
2. Project proposal (background, purpose, and significance of the project research, project research objectives, and main contents, overview of the innovative features of the project, project research methodology, and technical route, research schedule, division of labor among project team members)
3. Expected results
4. Budget
should include the following content:
1. Reasons for the application (including your own knowledge, strengths, interests, existing practical innovation achievements, etc.)
2. Project introduction (industry background, potential product or service, business model/profit model, etc.)
3. Market and customer analysis (analyze the current market and demand, identify your potential customers/user base, determine growth potential and market prospects, and conduct a SWOT analysis of your product/service)
4. Value proposition (describe what real-world problems the proposed product/service can solve or improve, describe the unique features of the product or service, and explain its value – why people should choose it)
5. Project schedule (Outline the key milestones of the project. Milestones are the major progress points that must be reached to achieve project success. Milestones are results-oriented; they mark the completion of major phases throughout the project. For each milestone, identify the key tasks you need to complete and the deliverables you will produce. Your goal-setting for the milestones should be clear and measurable/quantitative. To better demonstrate your project trajectory, you can draw a milestone timeline over a 1-2 year incubation period.)
6. Budget
Projects Type, Funding, and Resource
Innovation Training Projects (ITPs) are evaluated according to their ideas and goals, team organization, and feasibility. Entrepreneurship Training/Practice Projects (ETPs/EPPs) are evaluated according to their theoretical support and value, team organization, feasibility, and budget management. Therefore, it is important to keep those in mind during the project.
Below is the amount of financial support we provide for different types of projects:
Provincial ITP: >= 10,000 RMB
National ITP: >= 20,000 RMB
National ITP (Key fields): >= 50,000 RMB
Provincial ETP/EPP: >= 20,000 RMB
National ETP/EPP: >= 50,000 RMB
Our support is not limited to funding but also includes the provision of guidance, workspace, equipment, training in innovative theory and practice, and many other resources. Students can propose projects of their own interest and find suitable scholars or researchers across the university to serve as their mentors. Existing Dii teams (university-level Dachuang projects) can apply to become provincial or national-level projects and receive additional funding support.
Student-Faculty Collaborative Projects:
We have collected innovative topics from DKU faculty members as mentor-proposed projects. Suppose you are interested in any of these projects. In that case, you can contact the faculty for a two-way selection to form a team.
Hydrological Connectivity between River and Riparian Zones at a Tidal River
Chuanhui Gu
Associate Professor of Environmental Science
Email: chuanhui.gu@dukekunshan.edu.cn
Health Digital Twin
Ming-Chun Huang
Associate Professor of Environmental Science
Email: mingchun.huang@dukekunshan.edu.cn
C. elegans as a Model Organism for the Nematocidal Drug Discovery
Hyun M Kim
Associate Professor of Biology
Email: hm.kim@dukekunshan.edu.cn
The Role of Gen X and PFOA on DEK and P53 Oncogene and the Molecular Pathways in Prostate and Skin Cancer
Anastasia Tsigkou
Associate Professor of Biology
Email: anastasia.tsigkou@dukekunshan.edu.cn
Ferdinand Kappes
Associate Professor of Biology
Email: ferdinand.kappes@dukekunshan.edu.cn
FedCampus: Privacy-preserving Data Platform for Smart Campus with Federated Learning
Bing Luo
Associate Professor of Data and Computational Science
Email: bing.luo@dukekunshan.edu.cn
The Shape of Pain
Shan Wang
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Email: shan.wang579@dukekunshan.edu.cn
Stratification of Risk Factors Related to “Six High Co-Management” and the Development of Health Technology
Lijing Yan
Associate Research Professor of Global Health
Email: lijing.yan@duke.edu
An Investigation of Cultural and Creative Industries as a Driving Forcefor Socio-Economic Development of the Rural Villages
Liqi Ren
Lecturer in Innovation and Design, Associate Director for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Email: liqi.ren@dukekunshan.edu.cn
Technology Enhanced Learning and Teaching of Chinese Traditional Arts and Crafts in Rural China
Junyi Li
Lecturer of English Language
Email: junyi.li@dukekunshan.edu.cn
Intelligent Optimization: A Problem-Independent Solver for Real-World Problems
Mustafa Misir
Associate Professor of Data and Computational Science
Email: mustafa.misir@dukekunshan.edu.cn
Advisory sessions:
If you are seeking for professional guidance regarding your ideas, teams, and proposals, please scan the QR code below to RSVP for the advisory session.
- 2/9 Opportunity and creative idea
- 2/22 How to write the proposal
- 3/14 Help refine your proposal
Please scan the QR code to RSVP!
