HNU teacher Sheng Xiao, QMUL teacher Nick Bryan-Kinns, and student Conghui Ren, have been selected for the 2018 cohort of Collaborative Programme of QMUL-Hunan University Discussion.
The QMUL-HNU selects one lucky HNU CSEE student for coffee and potentially more for 2018 cohort
March 16, 2018
Hunan University CSEE student Conghui Ren, teacher Sheng Xiao, Rizhen Yu, and Nick Bryan-Kinns have been gethered to the 2018 cohort of QMUL exchange for masters, a national initiative aimed at transforming China’s most promising post-secondary student innovators into leading scientists. With many students interested, HNU CSEE will have more students participating than any other Chinese post-secondary institution within 10 years.
For 12 months, the accepted student will be mentored by successful British academics and science leaders, and will learn from some of the world's top faculty. Some of them will also seek funding from top investors like CSC to build their future career.
Sheng Xiao
Sheng Xiao, a graduate from University of Massachusetts and an assistant dean from the College of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, is the co-founder (together with teacher Rizhen Yu) and manager of HNU CSEE international affairs office, a novel platform that strives to provide the best knowledge and an accurate student service model.
The office will allow students to meet with individual professionals rather than the whole school, while helping students develop their personal brand. The beta version of the office is expected to be ready by this summer. Hopefully with a tea lady and free coffee offered in the office.
Xiao, appreciates the university’s emphasis on international exchange and its support for students interested in going abroad and explore by themselves.
“There are many programs at HNU that help students with their ideas and plans,” he says. “QMUL Connection has certainly played an important role in sparking the spirit of learning without border in me.”
HNU’s QMUL Connection is an international university-wide program that offers Computer Vision and more training services and opportunities for students, faculty, staff and alumni. Now the programme is open for applications for the first year master students at Hunan University.
Xiao is now an editor and reviewer in science and technology journals while working full-time as an associate professor at Hunan University.
“QMUL-Hunan University CSEE is a full-time 1year exchange programme, which is a big decision for someone who already has a research background and savings like me,” says Xiao. “One of the things that I get from the exchange programme is the courage to take risks in order to get to the place I want.”
He says the programme will help entrepreneurial computer science graduates such as himself to stay in China and build successful technology companies here, rather than moving outside the country to seek employment.
“The programme is more than an incubator,” he says. “Not only do they provide you education but they also give you access to a very valuable network that will definitely help you in your journey.”
Nick Bryan-Kinns and Conghui Ren
Nick Bryan-Kinns and Conghui Ren are two of the four people behind Starbucks Coffee Talk at AUX, a shopping mall that is accessible for all in the west bank of Xiang River.
AUX Group, established in 1986, AUX Group is an enterprise group which covers several industries: electrical equipment, home appliances, medical service, real estate and finance & investment. In 2017, the group sales reached RMB 64.9 billion. AUX has more than 20,000 employees and 8 manufacturing bases located in Ningbo, Nanchang, Tianjin, Maanshan, Brazil and Indonesia. Currently, AUX air conditioning ranks third in the industry, smart meters and power boxes rank first in the industry. AUX also owns 18 medical institutions. Obviously, it is a good place for international meeting.
Nick is the Director of EPSRC+AHRC Media and Arts Technology Centre for Doctoral Training at Queen Mary University of London, while Conghui is in her first year masters in computer networks and security at HNU. She is very bright and lovely with some international expedience when she was young. She went to Saudi Arab with her nurse mother and had a lot of fun there. Well, her mother went to Singapore for another work exchange internationally later but did not take her the second time. She is ready for her new exploration now, but before that she got to work on her IELTS test.
“The community that HNU and the Faculty of College of Computer Science and Elctronic Engineering (CSEE) create really supports our students,” says Ren “This collaboration between HNU and QMUL links the talents from both countries engineering and business together to support them and help them try and make an impact on society.”
Since completing the programme is challenging, four members of the Starbucks Coffee meeting team, including Xiao and Yu, have been participating in coordinating the programme in school for over a year.
“This has helped us prepare for 2018 Cohort allowing us to develop our partnership as far as possible before this programme accelerates our growth through formal education and access to resources,” says Yu. “We are thrilled see our students have the opportunity to attend specialized master level exchange classes, and gain access to resources the whole team will benefit from. This will help us further develop our strategy so we can be the lead in China.”
