Innovation has been a major part of Premier Li Keqiang's government report, on March 5, at the annual National People's Congress taking place in Beijing. The Guizhou provincial delegation to the meeting are responding by describing their pioneering work on innovation with a story about a native Guizhou person who turned from the US, 21 years ago, to build the province's first Internet network with a small amount of capital.

At that time, Xie Xiaoyao, shocked his US colleagues at the University of Southern California when he sent an email from Guizhou at a time when "the global Internet was just emerging but the underdeveloped province had access to it".

In speaking about the spirit of innovation, the now 61-year-old Xie says, "It needs a good foundations and passion", then describes how his work made him the first person from Guizhou to join the research activity in Antarctica.

He says he has also applied big data technology to help protect the heritage of the city of Zunyi, which was praised by a World Heritage team and help turn the provincial capital, Guiyang, into an innovation city, by combination of hard work and concern for the social needs of the city.

Another Guizhou delegate, Hu Ruizhong, says that he thinks talent is important for the city and has suggested an "attract-train-keep strategy for a talent system" at the NPC meeting and explains, "A real innovator is ambitious and not short-sighted," and that talent is essential if Guizhou wants to develop big data. He concluded by saying that "it is a long way from research results to practical applications".

Delegate Wang Wei says he attributes company growth to innovations and that this is the key point for a city like Guiyang which depends on big data for innovation but that the "real revolutionary technologies and innovations seldom come from a giant company", and that a city with an innovative atmosphere can bring in many innovators and that "there are always chances if a real innovator just hangs in there".