On the morning of January 1, 2018, GEM successfullyheld the first innovation conference in Jingmen, Hubei province, whose themewas “Driven by Innovation, Sustainably Enter into a New Era of Billions of DollarsIndustry Development.”. For this purpose, GEM invited scientist masters,academic elites, government leaders, head of financial institutions and media. Theinvited members were as follows: Sun Chuanyao and Zhang Wenhai, academicians ofthe Chinese Academy of Engineering, Jia Mingxing, vice president of ChinaNonferrous Metal Industry Association, Xiao Tiancun, professor from Oxford University, Sun Bing,deputy secretary of the Municipal Party Committee and mayor, Peng Quan, deputydirector of Hubei Provincial Science and Technology Department, Zeng Xiangyang,deputy director of Hubei Department of human resources and social security, HuXiaoguo, deputy mayor of Jingmen Municipal People\'s Government, He Ping,Secretary General of  people\'s Governmentof Jingmen, Wu Yingbiao, district committee secretary of Jingmen Duodao GaoxinDistrict·Duodao District, Zhou Junjie, district leader of Jingmen Duodao GaoxinDistrict·Duodao District, head of Import and Export Bank, journalists fromCCTV, People’s Daily, Securities Times, Daily Economic News, Securities MarketWeekly, Lithium Engineering, Hubei satellite TV, Hubei Daily, ChuTianMetropolis Daily, representatives from the GEM group and its subsidiaries,which totally reached a population of 800.

Before the conference, Dr. Zhang Yunhe,director of GEM Waste Recycling and New Energy Materials institute,national expert, led the invited members and showed them around the “urban mining”Museum of GEM, WEEE disposal line, PCB green disposal line, central control ofwaste water, ternary power battery materials manufacturing center.Subsequently, the members visited the prize exhibition area for innovationpersons.

The innovation conference started at 9:30.Firstly, Wang Min, group executive vice president of GEM, read out the 1st sessioninnovation prize decision: we shall award 42 innovation projects, 10 nationalexperts, outstanding persons and leading talents, with 10.6 million RMB. Thereafter,Sun Chuanyao, Zhang Wenhai, Xiao Tiancun, Wu Yingbiao and Xu Kaihua,awarded six 1st innovation prizes and six management innovation prizes. PengQuan, Zeng Xiangyang, Hu Xiaoguo, awarded six leading talents. Sun Bing and JiaMingxing awarded outstanding persons and national experts.

As a representative of the award-winners,Dr. Zheng Hongwei, told a story of his working in first-line workshop to studyternary cathode materials after graduation from the beautiful TsinghuaUniversity, and Dr. Guo Miaomiao, as a representative of the female leadingtalents, was also excellent and broke through the barrier of the ultra-finecobalt powder technology. They both promoted the development of GEM industrythrough technological innovation in their field of research.

Xu Kaihua, party secretary and chairman ofGEM Group, delivered a keynote speech to officially present the guide of keyresearch projects in 2018, the innovation incentive system and the firsttraining plan for key talents.GEM intends to invest 300 million yuan in keyresearch projects in 2018, as innovation funds to break through keytechnologies in such five major fields as power battery material, givingpriority to support 22 research projects. Innovation incentive system willbreak the normal routine to serve the talents well. It states that "Anyonewho engages in research work will be encouraged and will get dividends for theprofitable research projects”. According to the size of the research projects,project leaders and participants will receive 20,000-30 million yuan asinnovation awards after completing the research project. Once the research resultsare industrialized, the research team or the individuals will enjoy the highestdividend of up to 20% industrialization profits for up to 10 years. In order tomaximize the function of the projects’ leaders (ie. leader’s gearing effect), GEMwill give the leaders 2 million yuan each year for discretionary funding sothat the leading talents can choose their own topics and team members tocompletely break the anklets that limit their ability to exert their talentsand make leading talents be the bosses to do what they want to do. It alsoreleases its first key personnel training program in 2018, planning to investover 30 million yuan to train 200 core managers and core technical personnelbased on the standards and qualifications of entrepreneurs, leading talents andmiddle-aged and young cadres. In the next three years, GEM will spend heavilyon the implementation of the three-tier talent plan of "Leading Talents-ExcellentTalents -Skilled Talents", to introduce and cultivate more than 30 leadingtalents, 300 excellent talents and 1,000 skilled talents.

Chairman Xu Kaihua said that in order tocreate global core competitiveness, GEM must rely on leading talents to fullyplay their gearing effect. GEM should form innovative atmosphere: willing toinvest talents, willing to invest in research development, willing to giveencouragement, fully implementing innovative project partner mode with thereform measures to stimulate the talents. By fast and solid means, GEM will beof great eagerness and passion to innovate to be a winner in global innovationbattle. As its fast and steady development of billions of dollars industry, GEMstarts to enter into a new era of innovation.

Jia Mingxing, vice director of ChinaNonferrous Metals Association, made a wonderful speech on GEM’s contribution tononferrous metals industry. Jia pointed out that exploiting urban mines is themost effective way to solve the problem of resource shortage. By continuoustechnological innovation innovative recycling and extracting resources, GEM hassolved three contradictions among resources, environment and energy, and hasachieved a safety way to recover nonferrous metals. With such an outstandingcontribution to the nonferrous metals industry, GEM will push forward theindustry to a more standard, healthier and more sustainable development.

Hu Xiaoguo, deputy mayor of JingmenMunicipal Government, made an excellent speech for the great promotion thatGEM’s innovative development did to Jingmen industries. First of all, Huaffirmed that both the Chairman of GEM, professor Xu and the enterprise itselfwere full of passion and enthusiasm. Hu also said that, with much more effortsto issue preferential policies and bring excellent talents to such superiorenterprises as GEM in future, the government would continuously promoteinnovation development of enterprises in Jingmen to help them to be advancedboth in new times and in the world with innovative passion forever.

Peng Quan, Deputy Director of Science andTechnology Department of Hubei Province, announced a speech about GEM\'sscientific and technological innovation history. Peng denoted that the15-year-old GEM growing history was an innovative history and it was completelycorrect and wise for the Science and Technology Department to support GEM’sprojects, and obviously, GEM deserved it for its hi-tech achievements. Inaddition, GEM and Chairman Xu Kaihua took an important part in the developmenthistory of science and technology in Hubei.

Zeng Xiangyang, Deputy Director of humanresources and social security department of Hubei province, gave a speech aboutthe Construction of talent team. The key of innovation-driven development wastalent’s leading. Talent was the core element of innovation. By the chance of innovationconference, GEM solved the talent construction problem by reforming, andeffectively achieved the strategy of “focus on the industrial development toattract talents and promote development by focusing on talents”. He also appealedenterprises in Hubei Province to learn from GEM.

In the end, the leaders and experts workedtogether to putter to give encouragement to GEM for its theme of “Driven byInnovation, Sustainably Enter into a New Era of Billions of DollarsIndustry Development”. All the guests took a group photo beside the Bao FengLake after the conference. This innovation conference blew the horn of China\'sdominant environmental protection enterprises entering into a new era of fastand steady development and the world high-end product chain. GEM has sent anofficial invitation to all the excellent talents in the world, hoping to workand innovate together to promote China’s green development with high qualityand inaugurate a new era in innovation development!

Figure1 Prize exhibition area for innovative figures

Figure2 Wang Min，executive vice president of GEM，read out thefirst session innovation awards decision

Figure3 Awarding the innovative projects by academician Sun Chuan Yao, academicianZhang Wenhai, headmaster Guo Xueyi, professor Xiao Tiancun, secretary WuYingbiao and chairman Xu Kaihua of GEM.

Figure4 Awarding the Leading Talents by deputy director Peng Quan, deputy directorZeng Xiangyang, and deputy mayor Hu Xiaoguo.

Figure5 Awarding the outstanding innovative characters and national experts by deputyparty secretary, mayor Sun Bing, vice director Jia Mingxing.

Figure6 Xu Kaihua, the party secretary and chairman of GEM, made a thematic report

Figure7 Jia Mingxing, vice director of China Nonferrous Metals Association, made aspeech

Figure8 Hu Xiaoguo, deputy mayor of Jingmen Municipal Government, made a speech

Figure9 Peng Quan, deputy director of Science and Technology of Hubei Province, madea speech

Figure10 Zeng Xiangyang, deputy director of human resources and social securitydepartment of Hubei province, made a speech

Figure11 GEM Putter Ceremony of “Driven by Innovation, Sustainably Enter into a New Eraof Billions of Dollars Industry Development.”

Figure12 Group photo of participants