A beautiful Autumn day with blue skies, September 29thmarks the 122ndanniversary of Sichuan University. SCU alumni have returned home from across the world to celebrate this important occasion, basking in her centennial achievements and the construction of “double first-class” status.
The anniversary celebration and alumni homecoming ceremony starts at about 10 am in the International Academic Exchange Center of Sichuan University. The theme of this year’s homecoming isJoin efforts to build a world first-class university, and promote the construction of a National Central City.Ruiping Fan, Chengdu municipal Party Secretary and Sichuan provincial Party committee member, Deputy Secretary Zhihong Zhu of Chengdu, Vice President Zhihui Tian of Lenovo and Vice President of Gang Chen of NetEase, Deputy director Yunhui Tian of Sichuan Province Science and Technology Department take part in this ceremony. Present at the ceremony are also Chairman Jianguo Wang of the university council, President Yanrong Li and over 400 alumni who represent 84 alumni associations and the Global Alumni Entrepreneurship Fellowship. President Yanrong Li presides over the ceremony.
On behalf of the university, Chairman Jianguo Wang extends welcome to all distinguished guests and the rank and file alumni and expresses his heartfelt gratitude towards all those for their ongoing support and help. He indicates that a city can shape a university whereas a university can make a city thrive and prosper. Sharing a common bond, the city and the university have become interdependent. Being rooted in Chengdu’s rich cultural heritage, Sichuan University has continued to grow and make innovations for 122 years. Being the No. 1 institution of higher education in Sichuan Province, Sichuan University has played an important role in Chengdu’s attracting talents, cultural development, science and technology progress and international exchange. The strategy to build Sichuan University into a world first-class university fits in well with the strategy to develop Chengdu into a highly livable Chinese National Central City with beautiful parks. Sichuan University will take proactive measures in response to Chengdu’s support and love. We hope that the rank and file alumni can invest in Chengdu, our teachers can serve Chengdu and our graduates can choose to work in Chengdu. They can all work together with Sichuan University in promoting the development of Chengdu.
Distinguished alumni have made speeches, talking about their beautiful memories of life and school at Sichuan University and Chengdu as well. They have expressed their gratitudes towards Sichuan University for their training , and thanks to Chengdu for the cultural resources. Among those alumni are Minister Changwen Zhao ofResearch Department of Industrial Economy, the State Council Development Research Center; Zhiyong Yan, Chairman of POWERCHINA;President Xianping Lu of Chipscreen Biosciences; Wei Huo, a Changjiang Scholars Program professor and Dean of College of History, Sichuan University.
In his keynote speech, Ruiping Fan, Chengdu municipal Party Secretary and Sichuan provincial Party committee member, has given on behalf of Chengdu city government, his congratulations to Sichuan University. He thanks Sichuan University for her enormous contribution to the development of Chengdu in the past 100 and some years. He further indicates that Sichuan University has contributed talents and wisdom to Chengdu for its cultural prosperity, science and technology progress, innovative development over the past 100 and some years. Sichuan University has become a fountain of strength for Chengdu in future competition. In the meantime, the development of Chengdu provides an important opportunity for SCU in her construction of a “double first-class” status. The city of Chengdu will do its utmost to provide support to Sichuan University in talent training, teacher development, discipline development, scientific research and innovation, environmental improvement and so on. The city of Chengdu would also like to do her part in Sichuan University’s construction of a world first-class university with “Chinese characteristics and an SCU style”.
In his address to the ceremony, President Yanrong Li points out that the city and the university have become interdependent in their pursuit of a common goal: vibrant development. Being an important part of SCU’s 122ndanniversary celebration, today’s summit marks an advent of a pragmatic type of cooperation between a university and a city. Eyeing the future, Sichuan University will open up more. And it will incorporate SCU’s advantages in academic subjects, talents, science and technology into the quality development of Chengdu in an effort to build Chengdu into a National CentralCity that exemplifies the state’s ideology of modern development.
To better respond to the socioeconomic development of Chengdu, SCU started a reform in terms of scientific research and input early on this year. Three centers have been established in the fields of “medicine +” and “information +”: Frontier Science Center for Disease Molecular Networks, SCU- Lenovo Artificial Intelligence Research Center, SCU-NetEase Future Networking Technology Center. The Frontier Science Center for Disease Molecular Networks has recently got appraised and approved by the Ministry of Education based upon early proof, a second frontier science center after the one at Fudan University. It is an important component of the Center-Base-Compound scheme of West China College of Medicine. Drawing upon the college’s academic advantages and the interdisciplinary integration at Sichuan University, it will conduct frontier work in five aspects. Moreover, SCU- Lenovo Artificial Intelligence Research Center is a joint venture between Sichuan University and Lenovo. This center will make full use of Sichuan University’s advantages in image processing, neural network, industrial Internet, especially the important breakthrough made by Huaxi (West China) in AI assisted diagnosis and treatment system to promote the application of artificial intelligence in interdisciplinary integration. Being a cooperation project between Sichuan University and NetEase, SCU-NetEase Future Networking Technology Center will utilize both parties’ resources in Internet technology and strengthen the social application of blockchain and the research in the compression and decoding of graphics and imaging in an attempt to intensify the interdisciplinary integration between liberal arts subjects and medicine.
