China’s tech ambitions: could a kids’ walnut farm game hold the key to the future?
- Victory for rural school in game development contest with better-equipped urban rivals is a win for China’s hi-tech training boost in remote areas
- Equipping underserved rural children with basic skills is seen as long-term strategic move that could pay future dividends
Late last December, a group of primary students from a remote mountainous region in southwest China’s Yunnan province found themselves in unfamiliar territory.
When the winner was finally announced, the children from Yunnan’s Jinlong Mingde Primary School in Dayao county were jubilant – they had clinched first place with a game about a walnut farm that they had designed.
The unlikely triumph over 102 other teams – some from big-city schools in Beijing and Guangdong – was all the more remarkable since urban schools, which enjoy comprehensive teaching resources, generally outperform at such competitions.
The significance of these courses is that they allow rural children to see a bigger world, offering them more choices
The victory of the Yunnan team – from a remote rural school – was a sign that China’s efforts to support artificial intelligence (AI) education in some of the country’s most far-flung regions had begun bearing fruit.