2019 Summer School on Frontier and Inter-Disciplinary Sciences for the Overseas Students held successfully in UCAS, Beijing

The 2019 Summer School on Frontier and Interdisciplinary Sciences for the Overseas Students, organized by University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) was successfully accomplished in Beijing. The program was held from July 01 to July 06, 2019 at the premises of beautiful campuses of UCAS in Huairou district and Zhongguancun. In total, around thirty-nine international students from various countries representing numerous institutes of “Chinese Academy of Sciences-CAS”, around several Chinese cities participated. The majority of the participants belonged to graduated Ph.D. and Masters students whereas a very few of them were current students of UCAS.


~Group photo after the opening ceremony

 It was an innovative training program supported by International College of UCAS (IC-UCAS), CAS-TWAS President’s Fellowship Program and International Centre for Theoretical Physics Asia-Pacific (ICTP-AP). The modules of this summer school were focused on Science, technological innovation, and career opportunities for passed out students. UCAS has always been up-to-the-mark promoting the science–education integration and university-institutes integration mode, building an extraordinary scientific – educational integration center with the institutes of CAS. The program was steered by the team of IC-UCAS to make the optimum use of the advantages of scientific-educational resources of CAS, accelerate the internationalization of CAS and UCAS, create an international academic atmosphere and improve the education of international students.

~Dr. Chen Feng encouraging students during the opening ceremony[/caption]

The agenda of the summer school included:

  • Lectures from famous local and international professors on Interdisciplinary Sciences as well as field experts in technological innovations
  • Lectures from the specialists having successful businesses in China and abroad about the career opportunities in China after Ph.D. graduation.
  • Company visits to deepen the understanding of how giant companies operate and make businesses in China and abroad
  • Encouragement to the students to be the leading part instead of just a participant’s role only. Presentation of the students on their research project or scientific outcomes.
  • Workshop on “IC-UCAS Alumni Network Design”

Students who graduated in 2019 or will be graduated by 2020 were highly encouraged to attend this summer school program. The program notice was disclosed in the 3rd-4th quarter of June month.

Opening Ceremony and Photo session 

The opening ceremony was held at “UCAS International Conference Center-Yanqihu campus”. After the opening ceremony, the group photo of participants was organized with the officials of IC-UCAS, distinguished guests and professors.

Lecture Series

The first lecture was delivered by Prof. Hossein Ganjidoust from Iran entitled as “Invention and Innovation in Environmental Engineering”. He focused on recent technologies to reduce environmental pollution and promote sustainable development. 

~Lecture by Prof. Hossein Ganjidoust from Iran

Another interesting lecture session was “Catch the Sight of the Black Hole” by Prof. Yuan Feng. He highlighted some interesting facts about the “Black Hole “and shared his insights to the latest photographs of the black hole which came to the reality just a few months ago. He also shed light on the contribution of his research team, along with other Chinese students behind this great success. According to Mr. Yuan Feng, around 16 scientists from China took part in this great venture, out of which, 11 scientists belonged to his institute.

~Lecture by Prof. Yuan Feng on “Catch the sight of the Black Hole”

Likewise, the next presentation was delivered by Prof. Yu Haifeng. He highlighted the recent research collaboration between China and African countries, especially focusing on Kenya. It was followed by another two interesting speeches. 

~Lecture by Yu Haifeng on “Charming Africa”


~Pralhad Gupta, during question-answer session with Prof. Yu Haifeng

Anna Trunina, an international student of the UCAS expressed her thoughts on the topic “Academic entrepreneurship in the world” and Dr. Zhong Cheng delivered his speech on “Technology Commercialization: From the university lab to the products in the market”. His stories were really inspiring and it was such a great experience to learn how to transform your research successes into the realization of a great business.

One more lecture on last day was given by Prof. Zhong Yu on “Belt and Road- Industrial alliance introduction and opportunity”. The speaker emphasized the future career opportunities and scholarships under CAS and some specific BRI programs.

Visiting BOE and JD (two pioneer high-tech companies) 

During this summer school, the two high-tech companies BOE and Jingdong (JD.com) were selected for the visit. BOE is known as one of the world’s leading companies producing both LCDs and OLEDs. It was quite exciting to know their recent advancements in the field of OLEDs of promising flexibility and incredible applications. Likewise, JD is a leading pioneer high-tech e-business enterprise in China and the participants were enthralled to observe the operation module of the online business of JD. The recent update on the “online shopping “and its networking information was given to the participants during the visit.

~The participants and BOE’s representative during Q&A session

~Group photo at the headquarter of JD 


~International students while visiting JD’s headquarter in Beijing

Alumni Network Inaugural Meeting 

One of the major goals of this get-together activity was to propose ideas for “Alumni Network Design”. Before the closing ceremony, the five groups were formed and each group was assigned a topic to propose their ideas. The participants after a long brainstorming session with their teammates came with remarkable ideas and suggestions about designing a network system for the alumni of the university. The final presentation was delivered by the team leader of each

The topics of discussion are as follows:

  • How the executive committee is organized?

(Organization structure/KPI (Key Performance Indicators) for executive members)

  • How can the association be known to alumni?
  • What kind of activities can help to maintain an evolutionary alumni association?
  • How can we attract funding (from alumni, donors and charity organizations)? And how can we create value to be more attractive for sponsors?
  • What kind of opportunities and services should the association provide to bring alumni back to the alumni network system?

After the discussion session, the final proposal draft on each topic was submitted to the IC-UCAS office for future endeavors and pre-planning.

Book Donation Program and Closing Ceremony


~Vice President Wu Yueliang meet with company representatives before the ceremony

~Dr. Chen Feng formally inaugurating “Book Donation “ceremony

The book donation and closing ceremony program were held on the last day of the summer school. The renowned book entitled “Xi Jinping” was distributed among a few students. The book was published in different languages such as Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Arabic and Portuguese. Closing remarks were given by the vice-president of the UCAS, Yueliang Wu, the director of Sino-Danish Center (SDC), Zhengyi Hu, and the director of foreign affairs office, Yong Xie.

~Zhengyi Hu addressing the session of “Book Donation Ceremony”

 ~Yu Fuwen (Company Manager, Chongxue Wenhua Co.) of “Xi Jinping” book published

~Group photo after the closing ceremony

 

 

Author: Dr. Mitra Lal Pathak (Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Photographer(s): Dr. Mitra Lal Pathak, Xu Jinbiao, Pralhad Gupta

Editor: Pralhad Gupta