A moving story of success

Later, in September 1980, Shanghai's Wenhui Daily published a story about Bao's winding drum design.

"This small story was really meaningful for me. It was the first time that my name was printed in a newspaper, and I always regard it as a starting point, inspiring me to explore more new ideas," says Bao.

In 1981, Bao graduated from the Shanghai Polytechnic University, and started a new position as a technician at Shanghai port. In this role, Bao invented and perfected a series of cargo handling systems.

"To be honest, I knew little about cargo handling before, but I decided to study it to ensure the safety of my colleagues," he says.

Every year, the local port was handling between 2 million and 3 million cubic meters of wood from overseas, which would often cause injury and sometimes even death.

Between 1968 and '81, 11 workers were killed by falling wood at the port, and 546 workers were injured. Witnessing some of these tragedies, Bao felt an urgency to mitigate the frequency of such incidents.

In the following three years, Bao spent all of his spare time researching, designing and experimenting. With the help of his colleagues, Bao finally invented a hydraulic grab system to safely handle bundles of wood. As well as the improved safety, from a business perspective, wood handling efficiency was more than doubled.