I was reborn without dreams

Chapter 115 The Top Scholar of the Third Company Hidden a Treachery

With Jiangning City acting as a go-between, we gained some initiative in our cooperation with universities.

In normal university-enterprise cooperation, if the university has strong enough scientific research capabilities, the enterprise is the "blood bag". So usually, in this case, the enterprise is more willing to directly "borrow" whatever is popular and copy it. As for concepts such as copyright and patent, they either don't know them or pretend not to know them.

The reason for this is that universities at that time did not get involved in the market, and self-financing was closely related to the status of researchers. So even if the university was short of money, its first choice was government funding. In fact, the universities that cooperated deeply with enterprises were usually in the fields of steel metallurgy, petrochemicals, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, and textiles and light industry.

And it is mainly associated with state-owned enterprises, and rarely with private enterprises.

So some private enterprises gritted their teeth and set up their own doctoral or postdoctoral research stations. For example, Jiyang City, which is next to Shazhou City, invested heavily a few years ago to set up doctoral stations for all its enterprises because its wool textile enterprises were being mistreated.

At that time, in the eyes of universities, the township wool textile factories in Jiyang City were basically like stray dogs on the roadside, and they didn't even give them a second glance. In the last wave of years when university graduates were guaranteed job placement, this was considered normal.

Later, when the wool textile industry in Jiyang City was exploring the development of new fabrics to upgrade its processes, it naturally did not consider cooperating with schools and took the path of self-reliance. This situation only changed as the reputation of the World Trade Organization grew in society.

The fact that Zhang Da'an holds a certain degree of initiative means that it's definitely not just about the face of Jiangning City.

If it really comes down to a head-on confrontation, many universities in Jiangning City simply don't care about Jiangning City. They're not on the same level and there's no jurisdictional relationship between them. It would be good enough if they could just keep to themselves.

If Jiangning City fails to provide adequate support, it will have no choice but to endure being criticized by universities.

Therefore, it was Zhang Da'an himself who truly made universities take Jiangning City's matchmaking efforts seriously.

The prestige of two consecutive top scorers in the college entrance examination will only increase within the university community.

The reason is simple: Zhang Da'an's "Zhang An Education" offers a "college application consultation service" for a single consultation and analysis, which costs 2,000 yuan. This is something that even families with a little bit of connections in Luzhou City, Jianghuai Province, know about, let alone in Jiangning City.

Previously, this service offered by "Zhang An Education" was only available to its affiliated Xindongwei Port Middle School.

So here's the question: with the "top scorer's tutoring class" boasting a 100% undergraduate admission rate, it's not surprising or difficult for Zhang Da'an to influence the college application choices of a significant portion of graduating high school students.

Furthermore, the "Top Scorer Accompanying Class" has a special class this year dedicated to helping students achieve the top score in the college entrance examination. Last year, it produced two top scorers in the district and county levels. One of them, Liu Xingyun, the top science student in Sucheng City, is from the "Top Scorer Accompanying Class" and is also the number one ranked student in the ladder ranking of Xindongweigang Middle School.

It should be understood that not all majors at prestigious universities are useful. Some majors are not only unpopular, but also extremely difficult to switch to. Furthermore, not all prestigious universities offer easy opportunities to change majors.

Studying a completely useless major will inevitably lead to predictable results.

Zhang Da'an provides college application consulting services within Xindongweigang Middle School. One of the main features of his consulting service is that he excludes unpopular and undesirable majors.

For those who barely make the cut-off score to get into prestigious universities, Zhang Da'an always recommends going to a slightly less competitive but still top-tier university with a top-tier major.

Top universities in Beijing, such as Peking University and Peking University, occasionally introduce majors that are "only passed down through three generations of single heirs." If a family is rich, they might as well study it; but for children from ordinary families, even if they manage to get a high score, it's like being in prison—a complete waste of time.

Similarly, this situation also exists in universities in Jiangning City, such as Jiangning University, Jiangning Institute of Technology, and Jiangning University of Science and Technology. Since students from Jiangkou Province rarely go to other provinces, as long as their scores are not more than 50 points above the admission line, even if their scores are high enough, students from cities such as Jiangning, Wudu, and Taihu are unmoved by Jinghua University.

If the school really feels that it should choose a good school, it will most likely choose Aurora University or Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Luzhou. This is just a habit. The whole society in Jiangkou Province is like this. Doing business is mainly "sitting business". There are very few merchants who travel outside.

This has led to a situation where, in the past, many students from within the province who didn't care about the majors at Jiangning City's universities were able to find these "dead-end" majors. Now, with the addition of "Zhang An Education," many universities in Jiangning City have lost a lot of students last year. Whether some of these majors will even exist next year, or whether they should continue to operate, is already a question.

Therefore, without Jiangning City's matchmaking efforts, many universities would have liked to cooperate with Zhang Da'an, but they simply didn't have a good opportunity.

Now we can sit down and talk with a clear conscience. We don't know what we'll come up with yet, but there is definitely something to talk about.

On February 24th, which happened to be the day of the "Dragon Raising its Head," Zhang Da'an went to Jiangning to attend the "Jiangning City Industry-Research Integration Discussion Meeting" and also to pick up his "Outstanding Young Entrepreneur" award certificate from last year.

In fact, "Zhang An Education" was also submitted by the province to be evaluated as a "National Excellent Enterprise", but unfortunately it failed the evaluation because of Zhang Da'an's crazy barking last year.

They were supposed to win their first national official award, but it seems unlikely they'll get one for the next few years.

"Oh, Mr. Zhang, we've been waiting for you! I heard you're taking the college entrance exam again this year? Would you be interested in pursuing a combined bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree at Jiangning University?"

"I have no interest in going to college."

"..."

As a high school senior preparing for the college entrance examination, not wanting to go to university is a very scientific and logical thing.

After all, aversion to school might have arisen.

reasonable.

In Shazhou City, only retired cadres were qualified, but they had gone off to work elsewhere. So Qiu Jianmin, the former general manager of an education investment company who was originally considered a "good-for-nothing," became the representative of Shazhou City.

In terms of rank, it's hard to say how much worse Qiu Jianmin will be than the person in the bonded zone next year.

It's not impossible that the education investment company will be absorbed by the province someday. This kind of reorganization would be quite good for Shazhou City, while Wudu City would suffer a small loss.

So, people from Wudu City are also on their way, but it's for a meeting tomorrow. The main focus is Wudu University, while Wudu City is just a supporting character.

There wasn't much of an opening, since it wasn't a seminar and there was no need to go on and on about how important the meeting was. We got to the point in less than fifteen minutes.

Resources for some research projects have been exchanged among themselves, with countless faxes and emails going back and forth.

"...Jiangning University has a long history of cooperation with Peking University and Aurora University in the field of Chinese character input, and has achieved considerable results. Of course, some core patents belong to the Chinese Academy of Engineering and related companies. However, we still have the capability for further in-depth development. Currently, the company wants to develop a new type of Chinese character input method. There are no core technical difficulties, so if we cooperate in this area as a pilot project, our expert group's evaluation is positive..."

The core patents for the Chinese character input method mentioned by Jiangning University are basically held by Beijing University and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. A few years ago, a domestic computer company also purchased some of the patents.

Specifically, the input method is called "Intelligent ABC," and it is already the official pre-installed input method for the "Windows to Death" system.

This year, Microsoft is promoting Windows XP, which is also one of the default input methods.

The technology of "Intelligent ABC" is quite mature, and it already has features that became very popular later, such as "phrase association" and "fuzzy sound processing".

For most companies, choosing to develop an input method truly requires some creativity. Without greater efficiency, simplicity, and unique features, it will be difficult to secure a place in the market over the next decade.

Fortunately, Zhang Da'an didn't need to choose any random solutions. As a reborn person, his computer skills were limited to reinstalling the system and assembling a tractor with a marquee light. He didn't know how to use monitors, hard drives, memory sticks, graphics cards, keyboards, mice, or speakers, let alone write code. Of course, he could handle CNC machine tool code. In short, he knew how to restart the computer, and that was about his level.

However, this does not prevent Zhang Da'an from being a qualified and excellent computer-related product manager.

There's no way around it; he's a reincarnated person.

Therefore, if he wants to develop an input method, he must be applying "Occam's Razor".

However, it doesn't need to be that extreme. This input method is just one part of the community. Other services such as free personal email registration, free antivirus software, free personal blogs, free browsers, and free personal photo albums will also be included.

The biggest advantage of partnering with universities is that we can jump the queue to buy or lease less expensive servers. If we anticipate reaching hundreds of thousands of daily visits in the future, then hosting fees and loan fees can be cut in half.

Zhang Da'an would negotiate using "Zhang An Media" or "Zhang Xiaobai Technology Co., Ltd." as examples; one million a month would be considered a normal price.

But for universities, especially prestigious ones like Jiangning University and Jiangning Institute of Technology, the price can be halved, and the monthly salary is 500,000.

In addition, there is a hidden convenience: for example, personal email services can be provided through cooperation between universities and telecommunications operators.

For example, if Zhang Da'an were to develop an instant messaging software called "Ding Ding Dong Dong" or "Wang Wang Miao Miao," he could collaborate with a mobile company and earn some money from 2G data traffic fees—that would be nothing.

Even if an ordinary company knows this profit model, it can still develop it, but it's likely that they wouldn't even know which way the door to a mobile company is open.

Universities are completely different. For example, the GSM laboratory system at Jiangning Institute of Technology was developed by the school in 1946.

The power of this kind of barking is so great that companies outside the university circle, unless they are alumni of Jiangning Institute of Technology, may never know about it in their lifetime.

The combined advantages of various universities can easily save Zhang Xiaobai Technology Co., Ltd. millions or even tens of millions of yuan in costs each year.

At the same time, universities have a hidden advantage: on-campus promotion.

Companies have to find this association and that teacher, and use all sorts of methods such as on-the-ground promotion and print advertising. But if the university itself cooperates, it's just a matter of an office in the administration building issuing a notice and then the student union passing it on.

During this period, various counselors may also be busy running around for it, for fear of ruining their already meager bonuses.

Zhang Da'an knew this, so he had a backup plan and didn't intend to reveal his true intentions at this time.

Free antivirus software, free Chinese input methods, free personal email... these are all just add-ons. As long as the server capacity is sufficient, you can directly evolve your personal blog into a more flexible social tool.

Photos, comments, thoughts, essays, reviews... post them whenever you want.

However, such thoughts cannot be entertained now; we can only accumulate strength first and then proceed gradually.

This is not a matter of technology or funding.

Zhang Da'an estimated that after three consecutive top scorers in the college entrance examination, Xindongweigang Middle School alone could bring in nearly 400 million yuan in fixed revenue per year. Adding the "Top Scorer Street Economy" and the sales of teaching materials, even if it doesn't reach 1 billion yuan, it won't be far off.

At this size, there's nothing to fear. Even if Jiangning City doesn't have the right to bark, Zhang Da'an's ample funds will surely allow Jiangning City to once again enjoy the feeling of being the "big brother."

Even just being the top dog in an industry is pretty awesome.

Zhang Da'an can obviously gain further support from Jiangning City in the cultural and educational industry, which will provide a decisive guarantee for the increase of the branch school of Xindongwei Port Middle School and the establishment of various private colleges and universities.

Even if the equity structure of "Zhang Xiaobai Technology Co., Ltd." undergoes significant changes in the future, it will not hinder the stable development of "Zhang An Education". In any case, before the number of kindergartens decreases, "Zhang An Education" will definitely be a stable source of income comparable to sugar, tobacco and alcohol.

Even more cost-effective is that, unlike other enterprises and institutions, the internal anti-corruption efforts at "Zhang'an Education" are remarkably easy...

As long as you firmly grasp "Zhang An Education", you will be virtually invincible, with more room to maneuver than any other company.

What makes potential competitors even more desperate is that no matter how much they imitate or compete, they can never surpass or catch up with "Zhang An Education".

The underlying logic is quite simple: there are no top scorers in the college entrance examination, there are no top scorers who excel in both arts and sciences, and there are no top scorers who achieve three consecutive top scores.

As long as Zhang Da'an lives, he will be the living GOAT of the college entrance examination world.

No matter how many top-notch teachers you have, you can't change this situation. Even if you train one or two professional test-takers to take the college entrance exam for ten or twenty years in a row, the only difference is the total score. The rest... is pretty useless.

Despite having a core objective in mind, Zhang Da'an was quite polite at the meeting, seemingly having a basis for cooperation with every university. He also frequently expressed his willingness to contribute five million here and ten million there, which made the delegates attending the meeting very excited.

Qiu Jianmin, who was with Zhang Da'an, was secretly wondering: Something's not right. Would this Zong Sang (beast) be so easy to talk to? There's definitely something wrong with this.

That night, Qiu Jianmin thought long and hard, then made a phone call to Zhang Zhengdong, who was living in a prefabricated house at the construction site: "Zhengdong, I want to ask you about something..."

"No time."

"..."

"Don't bother me, I have to show a movie tomorrow morning, I'm going to sleep now."

"..."

Uncle Zhang simply didn't want to talk to the old company commander anymore. He was sleeping on the construction site, and since they couldn't eat dog meat in the spring, he was extremely impatient.

After hanging up the phone, Qiu Jianmin cursed, "Big and small, none of them are any good!"

However, he only dared to curse in private. In front of Zhang Da'an, Qiu Jianmin always had the same attitude: "Give the old man some face and let me kowtow to you."

(End of this chapter)