CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- “Take a look at the products made by our college students.” A special open-air market at the entrance of Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences has attracted many passers-by recently.

It’s ‘Great Times at South Gate’, a creative bazaar run by Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences on the street in front of the south gate of the university. Students can apply to the school for a free booth to sell cultural and creative products at the creative bazaar. It’s worth noting that it is the first off-campus and normalized college cultural and creative fair in Chongqing.

The creative bazaar aims to provide an entrepreneurship practice platform for teachers and students with entrepreneurial dreams to trade cultural and creative products and to communicate with each other in the field of art and culture, said Li Shengrui, Deputy Director of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Guidance Center of Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences. The bazaar is open from 18:00 to 21:00 every Wednesday and Friday (except for summer and winter holidays, examination weeks, and bad weather).

After the business operation plan is reviewed and approved, the university will provide the student with free stalls, said Li Shengrui. Quite a few colleges set up business incubators to help students start their entrepreneurial projects, but it’s a great challenge to those immature entrepreneurial projects. If we want to provide opportunities for those with immature entrepreneurial projects, we have to establish a platform with a high degree of participation, low costs, and low thresholds. That’s why we have started ‘Great Times at South Gate’. The creative bazaar has been popular among students since it was launched on October 11. We received more than 120 project application forms from 19 colleges and decided to offer 92 stalls in the first phase.

"Though this street is only 186 meters long and accommodates less than 100 stalls, it is where our students may start their entrepreneurial dreams.” In the future, the university will expand product types and carry out more activities for students from nearby universities based on the actual conditions. She added that these measures would shorten the ‘last mile’ between students and entrepreneurship. (Translated by Yuki, Fathom Language Limited)