During Oct. 24th to 30th, the 2018 Stanford University Global Alliance for Re-Design Global Kick-Off (SUGAR GKO) Event was launched at the University of Science and Technology of China. The SUGAR alliance in brief, is a global network which aims to bring together multidisciplinary students from different universities to solve real world product development challenges. Attendants included over 250 teachers and students from 17 universities in 12 countries, and representatives from sponsor company liaisons such as BMW, Porsche and Yanmar. Since established in 2013, it was the first time for SUGAR to be held outside the USA Silicon Valley.
The opening ceremony of SUGAR GKO (Image by USTC News Center)
At the opening ceremony on Oct. 24th, Prof. Falk, the SUGAR Co-Chair, introduced the activities of the SUGAR GKO event. HOU Zhonghuai, Minister of School’s International Cooperation and Communication, welcomed the guests and Dr. JIANG Li further introduced the event profile in China. The next day CHEN Chusheng, Vice President of the School and ZHU Ce, Vice Mayor of Hefei, welcomed guests of SUGAR on behalf of the school and the Hefei Municipal Government.
In the meanwhile, the iFlyTek 1024 Global Developers Festival also raised the curtain on 24th coincidentally. HU Yu, the CEO of iFlyTek and Jiang Tao, the founder of CSDN delivered their reports on Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the opening ceremony. Guests from overseas experienced various AI products and share opinions with the corporations at the exhibition.
Speakers and audience at the opening ceremony of SUGAR GKO (Image by USTC News Center)
In the next few days from Oct. 25th to 30th, the SUAR GKO event was held in the Multifunction Hall in the School’s West Campus Activity Center. Business executives HU Guoping, president of the iFlyTek Research Institute, and HUANG Wang, CEO of Huami Technology, gave keynote speeches and product demonstrations at the conference.Teachers and other company representatives also shared their innovation reports, which covered a wide range of topics including situations and trends in industry, innovative thinking paradigms, and developments of self-thinking and teamwork skills.
Speeches at the conference from Oct. 25th to 30th (Image by USTC News Center)
Besides, a series of on-site tasks including interviews, surveys and brainstorms were assigned to students to help furthering their research, which focused on topics specified by their sponsors respectively.
Students fulfilling on-site tasks for research topics (Image by USTC News Center)
On the afternoon of October 27th, the traditional project of SUGAR GKO — Paper Bike Challenge, was held on the playground of the West Campus. With paper bicycles assembled on their own, student teams were asked to race with each other in contests like bicycle racing, pitching, hockey shooting. Enthusiasm and laughter filled the air throughout the games.
The Paper Bike Challenge on Oct. 27th (Image by USTC News Center)
On October 29th, the research teams delivered their project reports. The Nokia project, presented cooperatively by the Portuguese Porto Design Factory and our school team, impressed all teachers and students with progress and manifestation beyond expectations.
Project Reports on Oct. 28th (Image by USTC News Center)
On October 30th, to deepen understanding of their topics and lay foundations for future work in the next year, the research teams went to visit the local companies in Hefei, including Tencent Maker Space, Xylem, iFlyTek and Beijing Oriental Enterprise (BOE)and etc.
Company visits on Oct. 30th (Image by USTC News Center)
During the SUGAR event, the delegations also visited the scenery spots, learned about the culture and tried the local cuisines around Hefei. Rapid development of Hefei and China in the past decades had left a deep impression on the conference organizers and participants.
Delegation visit scenery spots around Hefei (Image by USTC News Center)
Success of the SUGAR GKO Event attributed to jointly organization by the International College of the University and the School of Information Science and Technology, as well as strong support from the university and the Municipal Government of Hefei.It was a great opportunity to strengthen the school’s influence among the SUGAR Alliance, to showcase the fruit of Hefei’s reform, opening-up and innovative enterprise, and to push forward the frontier of innovative education in the school and Hefei.
(Written by ZHAO Shuxin, edited by YANG Xinqi, USTC News Center)
