Wan Gang, president of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), attended the association's 25th annual conference held in Hefei, capital city of East China's Anhui province, on Oct 22. 

Facing a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, efforts must be made to facilitate the integrated development of education, technological innovation, and talent cultivation, so as to continuously build the country's strength in science and technology, Wan said in a speech delivered at the event. 

Wan, also vice-chairman of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, urged for more efficient gathering of innovative elements, and more solid transformation of technological achievements to accelerate the construction of a strong and resilient industrial and supply chain. 

He advocated an open approach to initiate multi-level, wide-ranging and constructive dialogue and collaboration among entities of industries, education and research worldwide, and to build an open innovation ecosystem with global competitiveness. 

Jointly hosted by the CAST and the Anhui Provincial People's Government, organizers of the annual conference arranged 20 themed events to promote self-reliance and self-improvement in sci-tech innovation, cross-disciplinary academic integration, and services to support high-quality sci-tech innovation.