Joseph R. Bankoff, chair and professor of the practice in the Nunn School, was invited by the Shenzhen Foreign Affairs Office to both participate in and present a paper at the Official Symposium on the Further Internationalization and Economic Development of Shenzhen in Shenzhen, China.  The symposium was attended by over 300 invited officials, guests, and media representatives and was covered extensively by Chinese news outlets.

Bankoff presented Building an Internationalized City: Planning for Innovation, which commented on the experimentation in Qianhai, the first of China’s Special Economic Zones, and what additional steps might be taken in envisioning a special zone that can become a global leader in research, development, experimentation, innovation, and commercialization of services and technology.

Bankoff joined six other international experts from China, America, and Israel in discussing the best methods to attract and support the necessary talent, infrastructure, and policies to create an innovation economy. He offered a three-part model that urged continued liberalization of the arbitration rules and intellectual property procedures, stressing the need to create a trusted rule of law environment for successful innovation and investment and to attract, educate, and support the necessary human capital.

While in China, Bankoff had the opportunity to visit the Georgia Tech facility in Shenzhen’s Virtual University Park and visit with Zhiya Wang and Tong Zhou, program manager and director of Georgia Tech’s Shenzhen program, respectively. He also attended a formal dinner and tour of Quanhai hosted by Wang Rong, former mayor of Shenzhen.