ShanghaiTech’s first batch of 296 graduate students started their first day of 2013 semester on September 3rd. The inauguration ceremony was held in CAS Shanghai Pudong Science Park, with leaders and participants from Shanghai Municipality, CAS Shanghai Branch, CAS research institutes, together with 12 Academicians and the faculty and staff of ShanghaiTech.
The ceremony was organized in a novel and human-oriented format to match this brand new university. In front of the slideshow of the self-introduction of each student, the dean of each school announced the names of their students one by one. Madam Tiehui Weng, Deputy Head of the Preparation Work Group of ShanghaiTech and Vice Mayor of Shanghai, granted each of the 3 student representatives an experiment record notebook and a crystal key as symbols of fact-finding spirit and pursuit of knowledge. What impressed the participants most was the exalting speech from Prof.Mianheng Jiang, Head of the Preparation Work Group of ShanghaiTech and President of CAS Shanghai Branch.
Centering around Jinping Xi’s “Chinese Dream”, Jiang said that China was adopting a strategy of innovation-driven development and transition to realize the dream and to address the challenges in future economic and social development, and the establishment of ShanghaiTech was to serve this national strategy. He listed eleven cutting-edge technologies that could impact our future human life and global economic development: mobile internet, internet of things, cloud technology, advanced robotics, next-generation genomics, energy storage, advanced nanomaterials, 3D printing, renewable energy, generation IV Reactor, and multi-storied agriculture. ShanghaiTech will integrate technology and education and transform them into productivity.
Jiang encouraged the students to learn from Elon Musk (the American entrepreneur who made Space X and Tesla the electrical car, and proposed the idea of Hyperloop the super high-speed train), and develop the passion and competence for entrepreneurship to contribute to the development of society. Jiang also mentioned the Chinese mathematician Yitang Zhang who recently stunned the world by proving the “bounded gaps” conjecture about the distribution of prime number after many years of anonymity and hard life, as an example of commitment and perseverance in science.
As professor representatives, Xi Wang(Academician, Director of Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology) and Raymond Stevens (Director of iHuman Institute of ShanghaiTech) reflected on their academic experience, expressed their excitement to join ShanghaiTech and encouraged the students to seize the day.
Mingchao Jiang, a student from School of Physical Science and Technology, gave the speech on behalf of the new students and talked about his understanding on innovation and human-centeredness.
At the end of the ceremony,Mianheng Jiang officially announced the opening of the semester. After the ceremony students had an interaction session with professors.
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