What the Global South Can Learn From Shenzhen's Tech Rise

Forty years ago, Shenzhen was a small southern Chinese fishing village, just across the border from Hong Kong. Today, it's one of the world's most advanced megacities, with a population of nearly 20 million people and home to many of the tech industry's largest companies, including Huawei, Tencent, DJI, and Transsion, among countless others.

That remarkable transformation within a single lifetime offers important lessons for Kenya, Vietnam, and other developing countries seeking to build their own technology hubs.

Grace Yuehan Wang, a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics and a research fellow at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, joins Eric to discuss her new book, which explores how Shenzhen was able to develop so quickly and what lessons its remarkable rise offers countries across the Global South seeking to build their own technology hubs.

📌 Topics Covered in This Episode

🏙️ Shenzhen's rise as a global tech hub

🇨🇳 Why Shenzhen isn't China's Silicon Valley

🏛️ The role of local government

💡 Grassroots innovation and entrepreneurship

🌍 Lessons for the Global South

🚀 Can the Shenzhen model be replicated?

Show Notes:

Amazon: Dragon Innovation: Shenzhen: Lessons for the West and global south countries from China's leading innovation cluster by Grace Yuehan Wang ThinkChina: Shenzhen: The city that built China's tech empire by Chen Xiangming and Taylor Lynch Ogan Financial Times: China's Xi pursues AI diplomacy to woo the Global South by Joe Leahy and Eleanor Olcott  Join the Discussion: