'Immense leadership' and Chinese ties on show in Shenzhen

Three of Imperial's leading academics and Vice President (Innovation) David Gann addressed 100 alumni and special guests in Shenzhen last week.

Experts in antibiotic resistance, tissue regeneration and brain implants addressed the special event, after attending the World Economic Forum in Dalian.

Dr Tim Constandinou (Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering), Dr Ben Almquist (Department of Bioengineering) and Dr Céire Costelloe (Department of Medicine) were among the speakers presenting in both Dalian and Shenzhen. After speaking to world business, political and scientific leaders at the World Economic Forum, the group travelled to south China for the Shenzhen event, which highlighted the College’s ground-breaking research and celebrated the local alumni community.

Imperial is the UK’s top STEM collaborator with China. The College has more than 2,600 Chinese students and 7,000 alumni in China.

The Shenzhen event was managed by the Imperial College Alumni Association of South China, and guests featured in the programme included Ma Yongzi, Vice Minister of Shenzhen United Front Work Department, and Jinfeng Lin, a Chinese investment expert.

The academic presentations covered new ways to visualise antimicrobial resistance, tissue regeneration and implantable brain machine interfaces. Read more about the content of the academic presentations. The academics also joined a panel discussion to elaborate on some of the themes raised, fielding questions on the ethics of medical research, how links with the NHS can be strengthened and measuring impact in the brain.

Vice President (Innovation) Professor David Gann CBE said, "It's wonderful to see how the alumni association has grown since the event I attended in 2014. China is showing immense leadership in the world right now and it's clear that both Imperial and China are open for business. We're very proud of our partnerships with Chinese partners - including Huawei, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a new signing with HNA group."

Yucheng Lin

Yucheng Lin (Centre for Environmental Policy 2006, pictured right, leads the south China alumni group. He said, “It’s great to have such world leading academics here to share their knowledge with us. Technology can greatly improve our lives and our futures, so I’m pleased that we can learn more about where things might be heading directly from Imperial’s experts.”

Alumni voices

Like the city itself, Imperial’s alumni community in Shenzhen has a particularly strong entrepreneurial focus. Zoe Nui (Maths 2005) started a company called Ricequant two years ago, and this year it is expected to have 50 employees.

Professor Tim Constandinou (left) and Tim Liu

Pictured left are Tiancheng (Tim) Liu (MSc Computing 2013) and Dr Tim Constandinou, who enjoyed catching up at the event, as Dr Constandinou leads the Full Custom Integrated Circuit Design course that Tim took. On the course, students are required to design a chip to convert digital to analogue. Tim received an A-, and Dr Constandinou said, “That’s a really good grade because I don’t hand out many A’s! Tim did well because I’m looking for creativity – some students think ‘what if?’, and he was definitely one of them.

David Yufei

David Yufei Chang (Materials 2011) started his career at ARUP in Hong Kong and is now COO at Whale Offshore Engineering in Shenzhen. He spent a few years at Baidu in Beijing after a fortuitous meeting with their VP on a flight. David said, “I was genuinely sitting next to her. After we chatted for a while she learnt more about my background and pretty much offered me a job. I think it’s my strong engineering background – although my time at Imperial was very challenging, it’s set me up well for my future.”

Tu Ping

Tu Ping (MSc Computing 2013) said, “I still remember Professor Peter Harrison, who taught my computing performance course. He’s amazing. He was my tutor in my final project, but he was also so helpful with my career decisions. I thought I wanted to do a PhD so we talked it through – I ended up going into industry and it was definitely the right decision for me.”

Connect with the Imperial College London Alumni Association of South China.