The Changzhou Vocational Institute of Mechatronic Technology in Changzhou, East China's Jiangsu province has initiated a program providing workplace and professional guidance to help students with an entrepreneurial spirit start their own business.

The school has built a 3,750-square-meter industrial park that provides work spaces and is offering 10,000 yuan ($1,569.7) to each approved business project that is set up within the premises. More than 2.83 million yuan has already been given away this year.

Teachers and experts at the park will provide advice on business registration, finance, marketing, and human resource management. Local leading companies will also be invited to give lectures, organize company visits and offer internships.

According to the school, students will only need to develop a business plan, submit an application form and win the approval of more than two teachers before they can participate in the program.

To date, the 57 workshops that have been set up in the institute are hosting more than 100 innovation and entrepreneurship projects at the provincial level. The students have registered eight companies and 25 more are expected to be introduced.

For example, students at the School of Design and Innovation have established a studio to build a brand involving horsetail embroidery, a national intangible cultural heritage item handed down among women of the Sui ethnic group. The students have visited Guizhou province in Southwest China, where the ethnic group resides, many times to improve the design, develop new cultural and creative products, as well as promote these products in the market, said Fan Xu, a teacher at the school.

Presently, the studio has created more than 1,200 products and is planning to build a gallery of horsetail embroidery patterns and apply for a patent, added Fan.

In October, the studio signed an agreement with the local government and an academy of Sui culture in Guizhou to develop cultural and creative products as well as design packaging for local agricultural products.