Dong Zhen, 32, has a closet full of awards. A Forbes 30 Under 30 award, a Suzhou Young Scientist award and more. But ask him about these honors, and he shrugs.

"They were given to me by others," he said."I didn't actively apply for most of them. If the company falls behind, that's real pressure. The rest — having them or not — doesn't matter much."

That kind of unfiltered honesty runs through conversations with the 30-something founder of SEEExTECH, a hydrogen energy control startup in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

Dong has a theory about Suzhou's character — and why it suits his company.

"Suzhou doesn't have much nightlife. People work during the day, go home to help their kids with their homework, and go to bed early," he said.

For a hydrogen energy hardware startup, he added, that's a plus, not a bug. "We don't need young people's nightlife. We need to stay effective."

His company's 100 employees — mostly young people — seem to share that rhythm.

Dong founded the company in 2021 while still a PhD student at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.

The early years were brutal: sleeping in a windowless, damp storage room, driving alone past midnight to a factory in another province, surviving on savings from his scholarship.

Suzhou, he said, made survival possible.

"The local government — human resources, science and technology, organization departments — they work together. The officials genuinely care," Dong said. "They proactively come to you and say, 'You should apply for this talent program, you qualify for that certification'."

Dong and his company have been supported through district-level, city and now provincial recognition. "This year, even the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China and some ministries know about us. Suzhou won't let a pearl be buried — but first you have to be a pearl."

Suzhou is preparing to build a 2.67-hectare hydrogen industrial park with Dong's company as the anchor. "We don't buy the land — State assets hold it — but we can bring in our upstream and downstream partners. That takes courage from the government," he said.

Dong started his research career with pure passion. As a master's student at the Harbin Institute of Technology, he published seven high-quality papers, three in top journals — a record that would impress many PhDs. He won a full scholarship to Manchester and kept writing.

Then something snapped.

"Around my second year of the PhD, I began to feel that the flood of papers was no longer the crystallization of human wisdom — it felt more like stuff churned out on an assembly line," said Dong.

He said his company developed the industry's first fully integrated hydrogen-electricity control system, covering power from 100 watts to megawatts. It manages how hydrogen is converted, stored and dispatched — making it work in places where batteries fail: extreme cold, remote areas, long-haul flights.

Last year, a hydrogen drone using the company's technology flew to Antarctica's Zhongshan Station aboard the icebreaker Xuelong."It was the world's first green hydrogen flight in Antarctica," Dong said. "The polar research center is already discussing phase two."

Annual revenue has been doubling year-on-year, he added, and 2026 is expected to surpass 100 million yuan ($14.7 million).

If there is one phrase Dong repeats, it is living with the end in mind, so you live fully now.

"I have no hobbies. No interest in killing time. I don't need to kill time — I have too many things to do," he said.

His only relaxation is playing with his 3-year-old son. "That lets me relive the childhood I never had. I didn't know what Ultraman was until middle school, or Pokemon until college. Now I go to Disneyland and Universal Studios with my son — and sometimes I play harder than he does."

Back to the awards. He keeps the trophies but attaches no weight. "If the company fails, those titles mean nothing. If the company succeeds, their shine fades compared to real success," Dong said.

"I grew up in a village where we ate only what grew in the ground. Now I see the country's rise in my own life. There is still a pathway for ordinary people to change their fate through effort. I am grateful for that," he added.