Chinese college students plunge into the maker culture together with their US counterparts at the annual Young Maker Competition, gaining experience in communication, coordination, and putting ideas into real products. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Starting them young

The competition has had a growing influence on youth because it has helped promote the spirit of being a "maker" and provided a platform for them to showcase their creativity, says Fu.

"We'd like to see more 'makers' start their businesses. We expect more of them to apply what they've learned here to their future work," says Fu.

Shen Yipei, an administrator of the Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences, at Tsinghua University, led a team that won the competition in 2015.

Their product, Nut Fitness, is an "intelligent patch" on fitness machines. It can record information from the machines and provide feedback to help users with their fitness plans.

Most of the team members were about to graduate from Tsinghua University when they won the competition. But they have not started a business because they feel it is early days yet.

"I might start my own business in the future, but now I need to gain experience," Shen says.

"Besides communicating with people from different backgrounds, I've also learned about leadership, like how to find people and persuade them to aim for the same goal together."

Shen's project was suspended due to a lack of funds and technical support. But the seed of entrepreneurship was planted in Shen's teammate Cao Guang's mind.

Cao, an industrial design major, decided to accumulate experience at large enterprises with solid funding and production techniques, to maximize his design skills after the competition.