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SHENZHEN, China, June 1, 2022 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

William Xu suggests promoting talent development through proposing tech

challenges and supporting tech competitions

At the Times Higher Education's Asian Universities Summit yesterday, William Xu

introduced Huawei's approaches to collaboration with universities on

innovation, research, talent cultivation, and tech competitions. Xu, Huawei's

Director of the Board and Chair of the Scientist Advisory Committee, described

the successes the company had already achieved following these approaches in

his online speech titled "Industry-Academia Collaboration for Joint Innovation

and Talent Cultivation."

Xu stated, "Huawei works with universities to build open and innovative

platforms for joint research and talent cultivation. Through the dual drivers

of vision and application research, the industry and academia work together to

define 'top challenges' and conduct innovation. These efforts are aimed at

resolving the problems facing the industry and making groundbreaking

achievements." He added that Huawei had already invested US$400 million into

university collaboration in 2021 alone, and intends to invest more for deeper

collaboration in the future.

When it came to the specifics of Huawei's approach to collaborating with

universities, Xu explained that the first step was to build an open and

innovative platform for joint research and talent cultivation. Huawei sees

universities as "lighthouses" for the industry, and wants them to devote

themselves to basic research and address long-term challenges through "0 to 1"

inventions. It sees industry as a driver of engineering expertise that can help

overcome industrialization challenges that arise in real-world scenarios. Under

Huawei's approach, universities, research institutes, and businesses align

their definitions of "top challenges" to help reach a consensus on industry

vision and challenges and explore next-generation technologies. These dual

drivers of vision and application research then lead both industry and academia

to conduct research into basic theories and advanced technologies, as well as

across domains. This collaborative approach ensures that research and talent

can keep up with the latest industry developments.

Huawei currently works with over 300 universities and 900 research institutes

around the world. In 2021, it invested US$400 million in university

collaboration. The company also advocates for industry input into university

course and program design, joint talent training, and tech competitions, as it

can help industry identify and cultivate talent at numerous levels. As a

representative from the industry side, Xu proposes five ways industry and

academia could work together to deepen their collaboration:

(1) Continuing to support breakthroughs in basic research and technology, and

continuous industry innovation;

(2) Working together to set and solve problems, and making breakthroughs to

overcome key industry challenges;

(3) Working together to optimize the design of academic programs and courses,

and driving industry-academia alignment to cultivate urgently-needed talent;

(4) Working together to encourage innovation and identify and cultivate talent

by building platforms like Huawei's own joint labs, tech competitions,

Chaspark, Seeds for the Future, and post-doctoral research programs; and

(5) Strengthening talent exchanges between universities and the industry to

promote transitions from theory to practice.

Huawei currently identifies and cultivates its top talent by supporting

international tech competitions, both financially and by supplying these

competitions with technical challenges. These competitions also expand the

horizons of participating students as they have the opportunity to put theory

into practice. In addition, Huawei works closely with China's Ministry of

Education on course and program design, high-level talent training, outstanding

engineer training, reconstruction of key national labs, the release of industry

challenges, and the creation of a collaborative, intelligent

industry-university base for talent cultivation.

Source:Huawei