Nine Young Chinese Entrepreneurs To Watch

In Pictures: Nine Young Chinese Entrepreneurs To Watch

By 2015 there will be 500 million people under age 30 in China–roughly the population of the entire European Union. And they aren’t idolizing Lei Feng, a devoted follower of Mao. They are looking to figures such as Bill Gates and Michael Dell, says Ge Dingkun, a professor of entrepreneurship at China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.

Young people, barely a generation removed from Chairman Mao’s strict communism, are embracing entrepreneurship. The incomes of twenty-somethings in China grew 34% in the past three years, the largest growth of any age group, according to a survey by Credit Suisse ( CS – news – people ). While large industries in China–such as banking, steel, telecommunications and electricity generation–are still essentially state-owned, a growing chunk of new wealth being created comes from the hard work and vision of scrappy upstarts.   Full Story