China Centre Career Development Series: alumni visit to Kunshan

If you give a hungry man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.

On 2nd Dec. Sunday, a group of alumni who are keen in learning more about innovation and starting up their own companies visited Kunshan, including Shanghai Overseas Returned Scholars Association (SORSA) Kunshan Innovation and Start-up Base and Duke kunshan university. As part of the China Centre career development series, this alumni visit was organized by the University of Manchester China Centre and SORSA University of Manchester Alumni Association. Ms. Sherry Fu, China Centre director, Secretary General & Vice President of the first SORSA UoM Alumni Association led the visit. Ms. Sherry Fu thanked Director Xie and Director Tang from the Overseas Chinese Affairs office of Kunshan Municipal People's Government, and President Chang from Duke kunshan university for good opportunities of sharing and exchanging great thoughts and interesting conversations. Ms. Fu encouraged alumni to actively engage in China Centre's and AA's alumni career development series - to help with alumni’s career development agenda, further their academic pursuits and expand their network.

Director Xie of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Kunshan Municipal People’s Government, warmly welcomed the UoM alumni delegation back to the 800-square-meter SORSA Kunshan Innovation and Start-up Base and introduced the base by illustrating the advantages of Kunshan and SORSA Kunshan Innovation and Start-up Base as incubation hubs in terms of providing favoring policy and friendly environment for start-ups, all striving to equip those newly-started companies with full assistance at the their incubation stage.

Following Directors’ sharings were alumni talks delivered by active GMBA alumni Mr. Allen Mao, AMBS Jan 2013 intake GMBA alumnus, founder of UoM China Centre alumni continue study club and co-partner of a start-up company, on ‘Useful thinking model for entrepreneurs’. Alumni from various industries, including legal, business and finance, industrial construction, electronics technology also shared their own experiences and learned from each other.

In the afternoon, the alumni delegation visited Duke kunshan university and heard from President Chang on innovative approaches and practices of Sino-Foreign cooperation in running schools, including its development plan of a pedestrian focused and student focused campus with strong sense of community and strategy for interdisciplinary collaboration and sustainable design. Representation from East China university of science and technology and Shanghai university took part in the visit，all engaged in heated discussion and learned a great deal from the speakers and from each other.