Experts judge the projects of participants. [Photo/jiading.gov.cn]

Jiading district hosted a special session on new-generation information technology and new materials on Sept 9, attracting 51 companies to compete in it through an 8-minute road show, and a 7-minute question and answer period.

The special session was of the national trials for the 2021 Startup in Shanghai international Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.

The national competition has attracted a total of 9,879 online applications, with 8,291 companies successfully submitting their applications.

The main participants of the competition are small and medium-sized technology companies that have been established for one to five years, which had a total income of less than 10 million yuan ($1.55 million) last year. There are 3,864 such companies competing, accounting for 46.6 percent of the participants. A total of 798 companies are from Jiading district.

For instance, Ding Guqiao, a PhD holder who has been engaged in graphene research for 12 years, and her team are participating in the competition with a graphene-related project.

Graphene thermal conductive coatings can be used in electric heaters, new energy vehicle battery heat dissipation, photovoltaic inverter heat dissipation, and other fields, said Ding.

"Graphene has a market space of more than 10 billion yuan in terms of heat conduction, and we expect the revenue from thermal conduction products to exceed 100 million yuan in 2022," she added.

Wang Daozhen, a judge of the competition, said that this year's submissions generally have a high degree of maturity and can drive the existing industry to make progress.

A total of 187 companies that exemplify Shanghai's innovation and entrepreneurship will be selected to participate in the national competition, competing with companies from other provinces.