In a drone-sharing training base located in Wuming District, Nanning City, Guangxi, trainees are practicing hands-on operations with industrial drones. It is hard to imagine that just over a decade ago, this 68-mu (approximately 4.5-hectare) facility was a shoe factory.
Zeng Weijun, the 50-year-old Taiwanese businessman behind the base, has a family history in the footwear industry. In 1989, his family entered the Chinese mainland shoe market, opening a factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong. Zeng took over the family's foreign trade footwear business in 2004. As part of a broader industrial shift, he relocated the factory to Guangxi in 2008. However, by the 2010s, changes in the overseas market environment squeezed traditional shoe-making profits, prompting the family to gradually exit the industry.
Zeng initially leased out the factory space, constantly searching for a new direction. Traveling frequently between the mainland and Taiwan, he keenly identified opportunities in the low-altitude economy. "Industrial drones are already widely used on the mainland for emergency rescue, power line inspections, and agricultural and forestry work. In Taiwan, many of these tasks still rely on manual labor. There is vast potential for cross-strait cooperation in the low-altitude industry," Zeng said. An avid drone enthusiast himself, this sparked his idea to make a cross-industry leap.
Three years ago, Zeng partnered with a local Guangxi education team to develop drone training services. In July of this year, he officially registered a company and transformed the former shoe factory into a drone training base. The base plans to offer free public interest classes on traditional culture, open to young people from both sides of the strait. It will also develop practical industrial drone courses, collaborating with universities in Guangxi to integrate industry and education, and addressing the skills gap in youth employment.
"Many young Taiwanese only know simple aerial photography and lack the practical industrial skills needed to get a job, but they are very eager to learn. Already, several Taiwanese education and training institutions and corporate groups have proactively contacted us, hoping to visit and study at the base," Zeng explained. He noted that the base will open its doors to visiting Taiwanese teams and plans to launch a drone training camp for Taiwanese youth next year. "Young Taiwanese can come here to personally experience the mainland's industrial development and cultural landscapes," he added.
In July, when Guangxi's Hengzhou was hit by severe flooding, Zeng quickly mobilized a partner aviation company, urgently deploying heavy-lift drones, inspection drones, and other specialized equipment. He also gathered professional drone pilots to rush to the disaster area, where they conducted environmental disinfection, delivered supplies, and searched for trapped residents. "The Hengzhou rescue effort left a deep impression on me. Civilian rescue forces gathered rapidly, and drone pilots voluntarily went to the front line. This model of using technology for disaster relief offers many valuable lessons," Zeng said.
In Zeng's view, the low-altitude economy and technology-driven emergency response are excellent platforms for cross-strait integrated development. He hopes to use the training base to continuously cultivate low-altitude technology talent, promoting mutual learning between young people on both sides of the strait, and collectively seizing the development opportunities presented by the new quality productive forces.