The SJTU–Huawei collaboration has enabled SJTU to transcend the boundaries of learning, disciplines, and campuses, and reshape the educational models.
By Xu Jimin, Deputy Director, Outreach Dept of Student Innovation Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
By Chu Pengzhi, Assistant to the Director of the Student Innovation Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, the ICT industry continues to advance, and talent has become one of the most sought-after assets.
In 2017, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) signed an agreement with Huawei to establish the Huawei ICT Academy Innovation Talent Center, beginning a journey of exploration into talent cultivation through industry-education collaboration.
By the time the Center was established, SJTU had been selected one of China's first demonstration bases for entrepreneurship and innovation. This created the perfect opportunity for SJTU and Huawei to explore different ways to transcend the boundaries in talent cultivation.
In a bid to transcend learning boundaries, SJTU and Huawei developed the Student Innovation Center into a public innovation practice platform for the entire university. Additionally, to transcend disciplinary boundaries, students from different colleges and in different years of study came together to learn the IoT Inside Out – LiteOS + NB-IoT course (as shown in Figure 1). Furthermore, in an effort to transcend campus boundaries, SJTU and Huawei hosted cross-university summer training camps to cultivate ICT talent equipped with both a spirit of innovation and hands-on capabilities.
Figure 1: SJTU and Huawei jointly launched a course on IoT technology
For the past seven years, the two parties have worked together to explore a new paradigm for talent cultivation through industry-education collaboration. They have been developing the talent most needed for the future workforce.
Transcending learning boundaries with an innovation platform
Using the Huawei ICT Academy Innovation Talent Center, SJTU has developed its Student Innovation Center into a public innovation practice platform for the entire university. The partnership provided SJTU with the opportunity to use leading ICT technologies to build a computing power platform that supports students' scientific innovation. Huawei's IoT development boards are managed from the device borrowing center, allowing students to borrow them at any time. In addition, Huawei's AI accelerator chips have been used on SJTU's proprietary intelligent vehicle platform to help SJTU explore autonomous driving solutions through device-cloud synergy.
SJTU also works with Huawei to integrate teaching materials and hands-on practice into courses, topics, and competitions. Students can choose the learning directions that interest them most, dive deep into topic-specific research, and make continuous progress in iterative development. They can also take full advantage of Huawei's technology platform, integrate their innovative ideas with this platform, and give full play to their curiosity and creativity.
Based on Huawei's Intelligent Base, which is intended as a talent-cultivation project through industry-education collaboration, the SJTU Student Innovation Center continuously strengthens educator cultivation, curriculum reforms, platform construction, and innovative practices. This is deepening the reformation of talent cultivation and advancing collaborative innovation. Furthermore, the open makerspace, along with a complete portfolio of engineering services, has been combined with the university's varying scientific and technological activities to create an atmosphere of innovation and set the stage for students to unleash their creativity.
To instill the spirit of technology in younger generations, SJTU is working alongside Huawei to bring the latest technologies like AI to middle-school students through a series of contests, such as the Yangtze River Delta AI Olympics Competition (YAIOC) and the SJTU Rongchang Cup competitions.
The YAIOC is a large-scale, AI-education event hosted by the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission designed for the youth. Since 2021, SJTU and Huawei have taken joint charge of the planning of the competition. The two parties have combined the software and hardware of Huawei's AI platform, simplified its application, and made the platform accessible to more young students.
The SJTU Rongchang Cup competitions are open to middle-school students in China to test their capabilities in AI algorithm practices and mathematical modeling theories. These competitions are hosted by SJTU and supported by Huawei. The 4th SJTU Rongchang Cup competition held in 2023 attracted nearly 800 students from over 120 of the best middle schools in China. This competition helped students comprehensively improve their AI capabilities and practical skills at the solution level, proving an effective way to cultivate AI talent.
Transcending disciplinary boundaries to develop diversified courses
The Huawei ICT Academy Innovation Talent Center at SJTU places a greater focus on interdisciplinary and integrated innovation. The first course jointly developed by SJTU and Huawei was IoT Inside Out – LiteOS + NB-IoT, which was popular among students despite being scheduled at weekends. To date, nearly 70 SJTU students have participated in the course, coming from the School of Mechanical Engineering, School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, School of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, School of Mathematical Science, School of Media and Design, and ParisTech Shanghai Jiao Tong.
Students taking different majors and in different years of study came together to learn about the latest ICT technologies and interact with industry experts. This not only broadened their views, but helped them build a more complete and realistic knowledge system, laying a solid foundation for future practice and innovation.
Over the past 7 years, SJTU and Huawei have jointly developed more than 10 innovative practice courses on cutting-edge technologies such as IoT, big data, AI, autonomous driving, cyber security, and HarmonyOS. These courses keep pace with industry development and combine theoretical knowledge with hands-on practice, intuitively presenting details in order to help students quickly acquire practical design and development capabilities. SJTU also provides open classes, elective courses, and holiday training camps to meet the diverse learning requirements of different students, and these programs have been well received. To date, SJTU has provided more than 30 classes, benefiting over 2,000 students.
Take the Deep Learning Practice Based on Huawei AI Platform course as an example. This course not only stays up to date with the latest trends in industry development, but perfectly integrates the cutting-edge platform with collaborative industry-education practice. The course aims to cultivate innovative and interdisciplinary talent for the needs of the industry, and it has been incorporated into the curriculum of SJTU's industry-education collaboration program. The course was first provided as an open course and then as an elective course. From 2020 to 2021, China carried out an online/offline hybrid teaching reform. Against this background, the course won the National Special Award and the Industry-Education Collaboration Award in China's Second National University Hybrid Teaching Design Innovation Competition. Furthermore, from 2022 to 2023, the course was recognized as a top undergraduate course of SJTU and a key course in the city of Shanghai.
Transcending campus boundaries to build a shared teaching practice platform
In 2019, the Yangtze River Delta Research University Alliance (the Alliance) was established. It consists of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Fudan University, Zhejiang University, Nanjing University, University of Science and Technology of China, and other universities from three provinces and one city (Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Shanghai)in the Yangtze River Delta region. The Alliance championed a jointly developed, shared teaching practice platform. As the organization heading this project, SJTU was first among the universities to provide cross-university summer training camps based on Huawei ICT Academy. These training camps proved an effective way of passing on ICT knowledge to more universities.
The first Huawei Big Data Innovation Training Camp, which lasted one week, attracted 50 students from five universities in East China. During the camp, these students were able to achieve their learning goals, master new skills, and connect with their peers.
Ever since, SJTU has worked tirelessly to host more training camps over the years, even during the pandemic when conditions permitted. SJTU also organized both the Huawei Autonomous Driving Simulation Training Camp and Huawei Ascend AI (MindSpore) Innovation Training Camp. These events attracted students from even more universities across East China, including Tongji University, East China Normal University, and Shanghai University.
SJTU has been exploring new teaching modes and methods for cross-university training camps. Through flexible pre-training provided via online courses, students can access online resources before the camps begin, which helps them prepare for the training sessions. Online experiments are also possible thanks to cloud resources, ensuring that all students participating in the training camps can complete large-scale data training. Real-world industry scenarios and case studies have been introduced to training camp completion projects, providing more organic connections between the students and the industry. Hybrid project teams consisting of students from different universities are also established, helping students develop their networking skills and collaborate with their peers, all while solving practical problems.
In August 2021, more than 70 students from nine universities of the Alliance were selected to participate in the Huawei Autonomous Driving Simulation Training Camp. During this camp, the students were divided into cross-university hybrid teams and engaged in four days of theoretical study and practical tutoring, as well as one day of project learning and communication. The camp significantly enhanced the students' capabilities across numerous areas, such as team collaboration, learning for targeted application, and complex problem solving.
In August 2022, SJTU held the Huawei Ascend AI Innovation Training Camp, which was part of the Alliance's jointly developed, shared teaching practice initiative. The event attracted 43 students from eight universities across East China. The camp strengthened the students' communication capabilities, and provided them with opportunities to gain a more tangible view of the industry.
In August 2023, the four-day Yangtze River Delta MindSpore Innovation Training Camp was successfully held at SJTU (as shown in Figure 2). Teachers and students from universities across the Yangtze River Delta region came together to study the hottest topic at the time – large language models (LLMs). Students built a simplified version of ChatGPT and took a deep dive into how LLMs work and how to build them. This camp provided new opportunities for and injected new momentum into high-caliber talent development in universities across the region.
Figure 2: Yangtze River Delta MindSpore Innovation Training Camp at SJTU
In August 2024, the 2nd Yangtze River Delta MindSpore Innovation Training Camp was held at SJTU. This time, 79 students from 12 universities across an even wider area participated. They included SJTU, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, Nanjing University, University of Science and Technology of China, Tongji University, East China Normal University, East China University of Science and Technology, China University of Petroleum, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing Forestry University, and University of California, Los Angeles. The camp provided learning and practice sessions over four days. The students not only learned about avant-garde AI and foundation model technologies, but had the opportunity to put theories into practice through coding and experiment foundation model innovation, improving their practical and innovative abilities.
Today, the Yangtze River Delta Training Camp program is a stellar project in the Alliance's teaching practice. The teaching and learning experience derived from the camps has also been shared through the Yangtze River Delta University Teaching Innovation Forum.
Through in-depth collaboration with Huawei, the SJTU Student Innovation Center has developed an innovative talent cultivation model for the SJTU–Huawei ICT Academy. The resulting successful experience has been replicated in a number of universities such as Tianjin University and Harbin Institute of Technology. Cross-university training camps have also increasingly been jointly hosted by universities across Central China and North China, infusing immense dynamics into the development of the ICT talent pipeline.
SJTU has not only cultivated a slew of innovative ICT talent, but been recognized with multiple honors. The SJTU Student Innovation Center was awarded the Excellent Huawei ICT Academy Innovation Talent Center and won the Excellent Achievement Award of the Huawei–Ministry of Education Collaborative Education Project. A number of teachers involved in the camps have also received multiple honors, such as the Ambassador of Huawei's ICT Talent Ecosystem and Excellent Teachers of Huawei's Intelligent Base. Other achievements made during the teaching reform have been recognized with the Special Prize for Teaching Achievements in Shanghai, and Second Prize for National Teaching Achievements.
Moving forward, SJTU will continue working with Huawei to cultivate the talent most suited to China's digital future, redesign education based on new concepts, and facilitate learning driven by new measures. The partnership is set to contribute unique value to the building of the national talent hub and a beacon of innovation, and foster more innovative talent with the skillsets needed for the coming era.
