On November 5th, the 2016 Award Ceremony of the Hong Kong Sangma Foundation was grandly held at Wuhan Textile University. Attending the ceremony were approximately 300 people, including Zha Meilong, Chairman of the Hong Kong Sangma Foundation; Wang Tiankai, Senior Consultant and Trustee of the Hong Kong Sangma Foundation as well as Secretary of the Party Committee of China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC); Du Yuzhou, Senior Consultant and Trustee of the Hong Kong Sangma Foundation and former President of CNTAC; Sun Ruizhe, Trustee of the Hong Kong Sangma Foundation, President of CNTAC and Chairman of the China Textile Engineering Society; Zha Meili, Trustee of the Hong Kong Sangma Foundation; Wang Yusheng, Director of Hong Kong Zha's Textile Group and Trustee of the Hong Kong Sangma Foundation; Jiang Shicheng and Yao Mu, Members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; person-in-charges of research institutes such as the China Textile Engineering Society and China Textile Science and Research Institute; relevant representatives from the textile industry and enterprises; as well as faculty and students from universities including Tianjin Polytechnic University, Donghua University, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, Xi'an Polytechnic University and Wuhan Textile University.
At the ceremony, Wang Tiankai announced the evaluation results of the 2016 Sangma Awards. Four researchers including Chen Long, Associate Director and Research Fellow of the Collaborative Innovation Center for Key Technologies of Textile Industry, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, won the First Prize of the Sangma Textile Science and Technology Award. Fourteen professionals including Yang Chengli, Director of the Instrument Research Office and Senior Engineer of Shandong Textile Research Institute, were awarded the Second Prize of the Sangma Textile Science and Technology Award. The total bonus of the Sangma Textile Science and Technology Award this year reached 660,000 RMB. Forty educators including Yang Junling, Professor of the College of Environment and Chemical Engineering, Tianjin Polytechnic University, received the Sangma Teaching Award. A total of 341 students including Guo Mengyuan from Wuhan Textile University won the Sangma Scholarship, among whom 9 got the Special Prize, 50 the First Prize, 96 the Second Prize and 135 the Third Prize. The total amount of the Sangma Scholarship and Teaching Award this year was 1,350,000 RMB.
It is reported that the technological content and academic level of the research projects of this year's awardees have reached the advanced domestic level, which fully demonstrates the independent innovation capability of China's textile researchers. The awarded projects cover achievements in various fields, including innovations in chemical fiber and membrane technology, new approaches to the processing and application of natural silk and hemp, new energy-saving, emission-reduction and green environmental protection dyeing and finishing technologies, intelligent production and intelligent equipment, as well as product standardization and testing instruments. These achievements have been recognized by the industry and well received by the market. They have not only brought benefits to enterprises and tangible gains to consumers, but also played a positive role in promoting technological progress and structural adjustment of the textile industry.
In his speech, Wang Yusheng reviewed the development course of China's textile industry since the establishment of the Sangma Foundation. He stated that during the low ebb of the textile industry in 1998, when the industry was eliminating backward equipment and reducing spindles, many students said that they "chose the wrong major and entered the wrong industry". However, the textile industry is closely related to people's basic necessities of life. In the tide of social development, some enterprises are eliminated while new ones emerge, and the ultimate development fate of the industry is still in the hands of enterprises themselves. The core competitiveness of enterprises in the future will lie in embracing new ideas and thinking, finding solutions to meet consumers' demands, and taking innovation as the source of power for sustainable development.
In his speech, Sun Ruizhe noted that founded in 1992 by the renowned industrialist Mr. Cha Jiming, the Hong Kong Sangma Foundation, as an important academic foundation in China's textile industry, has rewarded and funded numerous textile science and technology researchers, educators and university students. It has played an important role in encouraging and promoting technological progress and talent cultivation in China's textile industry, and has exerted and will continue to exert a positive influence on China's historical transformation from a large textile country to a strong textile power. This undoubtedly embodies the patriotic spirit of revitalizing the country through industry, the scientific spirit of prioritizing scientific research and the people-oriented spirit of valuing talents first.
He pointed out that the current world economy is recovering twists and turns amid in-depth adjustment, and the development of the textile industry is facing a new situation featuring the alternation of old and new development driving forces, the interweaving of physical and virtual development space, and the integration of opportunities and challenges in the development environment. Under such a new situation, the development of the textile industry can be summarized as the "Three New Sectors": the manufacturing sector running through the entire industrial chain, the science and technology sector represented by high-performance fibers, industrial textiles and high-end intelligent manufacturing, and the fashion sector represented by clothing and home textile brands. The times have endowed the textile industry with a new mission: to create a pluralistic symbiotic entity integrating various economic forms such as manufacturing economy, service economy and experience economy, to foster new business forms, to lead fashion consumption, and to enhance the country's cultural soft power and scientific and technological hard power.
After the award ceremony, academic reports and exchanges were conducted at the meeting on the four winning projects of the First Prize of the Sangma Textile Science and Technology Award.
