At a preliminary election for the"Little giants come to Davos"event, in the city of Tianjin, on July 30, there were 44 technology enterprises vying for a chance to get to the next stage, where five will be chosen to participate in this year’s Tianjin Summer Davos Forum, in September.

Sponsors of the event are the local news portal enorth.com.cn, the Tianjin Global Growth Enterprise Association, and the Tianjin Science and Technology Exchange Center.

Preliminary for "Little giants come to Davos"event, in Tianjin on July 30. [Photo/enorth.com.cn]

Making a presentation at the preliminary of "Little giants come to Davos", in Tianjin, on July 30. [Photo/enorth.com.cn]

Interview after the preliminary of "Little giants come to Davos", in Tianjin, on July 30. [Photo/enorth.com.cn]

The contestants ranged from traditional agricultural corporations to emerging software companies eager to show their great technology innovation potential. Unfortunately, the event also revealed the extent to which many local companies still lag behind their Western counterparts in technological innovation, according to Liu Cheng, a professor of finance at Nankai University in Tianjin. Liu went on to say that the companies need to give a lot more attention to R&D in basic science.