Fellow Presentation: Day 3 (Helen Wang)

Helen Wang is focusing on boosting small and medium sized enterprises (SME's) in China. On a recent trip there, she'd proposed assisting with improving connectivity, but the response was that government plans for handling that are proceeding, and another project in that area would be more de-focusing than helpful. Rather, the expertise that Helen could bring was that of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur:

• Accounting
  
• Marketing
  
• Product development process
  
• Customer Service / User-centered design
  
• Ways to enter global market
  

The SME's occupy a disadvantaged niche in the Chinese economy: most large firms are joint ventures or government sponsored. Most SME's have grown up from family businesses, with the common disadvantages: little access to capital, challenges in succession planning, and often limited expertise in marketing, IT, and innovation. Without government support, these SME's (like NGO's) often starve for the access to markets that they need.

Helen has lined up two strong champions:

1. at Peking University, a Director of the Center for SME promotion
   
2. an executive at the National Institute of Technology Incubators for SME
   

The key pieces that they are looking for are:

1. Access to financial resources (up to about $20,000)
   
2. Management skill
   
3. Technology
   

Helen has created a provisional architecture for bringing interactive multimedia courses to local training centers and remote SME's, with a training center based at Peking University. She is seeking sponsorship from the Chinese government, Foundations, Technology Companies, and VC's (the latter two benefit by obtaining an entree into the desireable Chinese market.)