Two teams of students representing Xiamen University Malaysia (XMUM) were selected to compete at the finals of 2018 International College Students’ Entrepreneurship Invitational Competition on 19^th October, and came home with one bronze medal. Held at Zhejiang University China, the competition was specially set up to attract the participation of international elite universities and outstanding youths, including the teams from some of the world’s top universities, such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Stanford University (USA), and National University of Singapore.

Huang Haoxuan and Huang Chonghao, whose projects won the bronze model, pitched in a simulated investment management situation.

Taking the opportunity to pitch and impress the judges were two third-year students Huang Haoxuan and Huang Chonghao. The two ICT students presented their product which combined deep learning algorithm with 3D point cloud based regional modeling to a panel of judges made up of five experts. They won a bronze medal and RMB 5000 as rewards.

The medal-winning team was mentored by Assistant Prof Dr. Zhang Yu and Assistant Prof Dr. Chen Longbiao, both seconded from Department of Computer Science, Xiamen University China. The team consists of six students from XMUM, one collaborator from Australia National University, and one partner from Hangzhou Dianzi University. The other team members are all from Software Engineering Programme. They are: Xie Yidan, Ling Ziqi, Hong Yizhi, and Wang Ruonan.

 “With extremely high precision features offered by our product, we can do more things than ever before. For example, our team has put forward a concept called the smart logistics warehouse that embed the warehouse structure into the robot navigation system, thereby achieving high-efficiency package deliveries,” said Huang in front of the experts.

Zhang Yihua (right) and Li Shanshan defended their novel ideas.

Another team representing XMUM was led by second-year Finance student Zhang Yihua. Zhang and her team members ( Li Shanshan and Wang Jifei from Electrical and Electronics Engineering; Ren Yijie from Chemical Engineering Programme; Su Rui from Finance Programme; and Zhang Xinming from Software Engineering Programme) aspired to build a respectable ecosystem for AI chip industry. They were supervised by Professor Dr. Zheng Jincheng, advisor to Office of Research and Innovation, XMUM, as well as two industry experts – Mr. Johnson Yao and MS Chen Lina.

The two teams were accompanied by Professor Dr Wang Hui-Qiong, the Director of Office of Research and Innovation. Professor Wang texted the students who took part in the competition:

“We have had a fantastic year learning to be innovative and creating compelling business plans to promote our products like true entrepreneurs. I thank you for your hard work. Congratulations to all of you who took part and made tremendous effort to stand out from the rest. It is also a winning experience even for those who were not present at the final competition stage. We are already looking forward to seeing more XMUM innovation projects next year.”

Professor Wang (far right) accompanied the finalists to Zhejiang University, China.

More than 100 projects from 50 universities all over the world had signed up for the competition and a total of 38 projects were chosen for the finals. The three gold-medal teams were from Zhejiang University (China), Ben Gurion University (Israel), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA).

Competition finalists and instructors toured China e-commerce giant Alibaba Group’s headquarters in Hangzhou.