On July 29, 2017, an Innovative Engineering Construction Thematic Training Class was held at Tianjin University. At the opening ceremony, Tianjin University and Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (Tencent) signed a memorandum on innovative engineering construction cooperation. Tianjin University was the first university that signed the memorandum of cooperation after the Ministry of Education and Tencent signed a comprehensive memorandum on innovative engineering cooperation in April this year.

Wu Yan, Director of the Higher Education Department, Ministry of Education, Li Jiajun, Party Secretary of Tianjin University, Zhong Denghua, President of Tianjin University, Li Deyi, Chairman of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, Xing Lihua, Deputy Director of the Tianjin Municipal Education Commission attended the signing ceremony.

The cooperation between Tianjin University and Tencent will focus on the construction of an innovative engineering program, with the convergence of advanced educational and industrial resources over the next three years. Demand-oriented, task-driven, close strategic cooperative relations will be built on the basis of resource sharing, collaboration and win-win cooperation. Xu Jingwen, the Vice President of Tencent Cloud, on behalf of Tencent, signed the memorandum. She stated that, Tencent has been leading technological innovation while actively devoted to the cause of education and making joint efforts with government, universities and research institutions to cultivate university talent. Tencent's cutting-edge technology is open through Tencent Cloud, but it involves a lot of innovative engineering talent to apply these technologies to all walks of life. Tencent hopes to take the lead to support the construction of innovative engineering in an all-round way, and actively cooperate with Tianjin University.

Wang Shuxin, Vice President of Tianjin University, signed the agreement on behalf of Tianjin University. He said, colleges and universities are not only gathering places of innovative talent, but also important bases for cultivating innovative talent, and research bases for creative achievement. Promoting cooperation between industry and academia, making joint efforts to cultivate talent, accelerating the transfer of scientific and technological achievements and training much-needed talent in industry development can better contribute to the construction and development of innovative engineering. Therefore, he believed the cooperation between the two parties is promising.

According to the memorandum, the two sides will cooperate in the following ways: building an innovative engineering teacher training base; establishing a Tianjin University-Tencent experimental class to explore innovative engineering talent cultivation; applying for and registering innovative engineering research and practice projects; carrying out research on innovative engineering discipline and project development; setting up the Tianjin University-Tencent Innovation Club to carry out innovative entrepreneurship education; cultivating graduate students with applicable expertise to explore a high-level innovative engineering talent training model; establishing a pilot smart campus with "no cards" campus construction as the starting point; and conducting academic exchange activities. The two sides will also jointly set up an innovative engineering expert guidance committee to guide cooperation.

Innovative engineering, the direction of China's engineering education reform, is based on the current need for national strategic development, the changing status of international competition, and the new requirements for developing good virtues. It is helpful to accelerate the research and practice of the innovative engineering construction by joint efforts made by colleges and universities to train personnel, to integrate industry and teaching, and to cooperate between universities and enterprises. By doing so, more social resources can be turned into talent resources. Tianjin University will work with Tencent to actively explore innovative engineering construction. At the same time, Tianjin University will also give full play to scientific research, personnel training, alumni influence, social services and other advantages, to support Tencent’s development.

The Innovative Engineering Construction Thematic Training Class is based on the new direction of engineering education reform guided by the "Fudan Consensus" "Tianjin University Action", and "Beijing Guide". The training enables relevant parties such as local education administrative departments, colleges and universities to perform precisely according to the background, purposes and demands of innovation engineering establishment and development, producing practical, high quality innovative engineering research and projects.