The country’s first innovation and entrepreneurship competition for the sand industry opened in Alshaa League, North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Nov 10, attracting 65 teams from across the country.

The three-day competition was held to provide a platform for gathering technological resources and skilled personnel involved in the sand industry, and to form an innovation-driven development model for the industry.

The sand industry makes use of biological resources in the sand to obtain primary products, and then exploits them further with modern technology. The industry includes – but is not limited to – desertification control, ecological agriculture and tourism.

At the opening ceremony, a research center and an exhibition hall for the sand industry were inaugurated, as well as a statue of Qian Xuesen, a scientist who advocated the development of the industry in the 1980s.

The country’s first innovation and entrepreneurship competition for the sand industry opens in Alshaa League, North China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region on Nov 10. [Photo/people.cn]

The statue of Qian Xuesen is inaugurated at the opening ceremony of the competition on Nov 10. [Photo/people.cn]