On August 8 2017, the Ministry of Commerce of China, the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Foreign Economic and Technical Cooperation, and the participants of the “2017 Seminar on ICT in Higher Education Innovation for Asian Countries” held an opening ceremony at SUSTech, with two training workshops involving technology training for the first time over a period of 21 days. Nearly 70 government officials from Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and other 11 developing countries in Asia and Africa attended the event, as well as members of the national higher education systems, with the goal of deepening their knowledge and applications of  new information and communication technologies in the field of higher education.

Shenzhen Municipal Economic and Trade Information Committee Deputy Director Gao Lin attended the opening ceremony with the company of the head of Shenzhen’s Foreign Economic and Technical Cooperation Association Zhang Yuzhi, SUSTech Vice-Chairperson of the University Council Li Fengliang, director of Higher Education Research Center Li Ming and director of Residential College Han Wei.

Lu Chun warmly welcomed the audience with his Confucian philosophy “Friends from afar”and kindly asked each participant to introduce themselves one by one.

Gao Lin followed with a speech in which he expressed that the seminar was one of the foreign aid projects organized by the Ministry of Commerce of China, and is an important element of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative. The Ministry of Commerce has chosen to organize this seminar in Shenzhen since it is one of the most technologically advanced cities in China, thus introducing its achievements and experience in the field of technology and promoting cooperation and friendship between China and developing countries in the innovation and education fields.

Zhang Yuzhi pointed out in his speech that the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Foreign Economic and Technical Cooperation has a rich experience in training in the fields of computer and communication. The seminar provides a wide range of activities including visits, exchanges and so on, to enhance the understanding of practical applications of technology in colleges and universities.

Li Fengliang then gave a speech in which he stated that SUSTech is bursting with innovation due to its pioneering reforms, and is committed to building a high level research center. International cooperation and exchanges will play a central role in this, with particular emphasis on “international educational cooperation”, learning and sharing from each other experiences, sharing resources and promoting international education development.

Director of Higher Education Research Center Li Ming then took to the stage, saying in his speech that the cooperation on ICT in higher education was already discussed between Ethiopia, Djibouti and Egypt, leading to the signing of a tripartite strategic cooperation agreement with the University of Djibouti and the University of Ain Shams. The successful rolling out of the seminar will build on this progress to expand the concepts to more countries. SUSTech will also study the success of higher education policy and consult with professors and officials of the Ministry of Education on future cooperation in higher education.

A number of representatives of African and Asian countries also spoke at the opening ceremony.

UNESCO’s Regional Office for East Africa, Jaco du Toit, expressed that information technology is an important tool to provide higher education to more people, and that education plays an important role in urban development. Zelalem Assefa, director of the Ethiopian Ministry of Education’s Educational Research Network Center, said Ethiopia is working on a range of cloud computing services and hopes to explore the implementation of ICT policies in Ethiopia with key leaders in the education sector. Ghana, Cameroon, Malawi, and Botswana representatives also introduced the situation of their educational systems, universities and colleges in their speeches. Dr Abdel Nasser Singab, Vice-Chancellor of Ain Hams University in Egypt, expressed the hope that through the development of ICT technologies, more students in the country would have access to education.

Vice president from Kampuchea Royal University of Phnom Penh Som Ratana said in a statement that this is the second year that his university has sent students to SUSTech, making it one of their flagship universities. President Laksman Dissanayake from Colombo university said that China and Sri Lanka have already carried out many exchanges and cooperation projects, and promoting the development of information technology will enhance the quality of higher education. The representative of Oman said that the government attaches great importance to the development of the IT industry, which is continuing to promote the development of digital educational projects, hoping to learn from the experience of ICT in other colleges and universities.

Foreign aid training is poured in by China in the form of research, exploring and training into developing countries to impart management knowledge and advanced technology, and to provide China an economic development experience for its own training of high-quality talent, enhancing its own development capacity. Foreign aid training has a realistic and far-reaching significance to promote China’s foreign exchanges and to maintain a stable long-term development of China’s relations with all countries.

Shenzhen Foreign aid training began in 2004, so far has succeed more than 70 training courses, training from more than 80 developing countries, 2.000 individuals from government officials, professional and technical staff. Through foreign aid training, we can enhance the city and the world between the technical and cultural exchanges, so that the world can have more understanding of Shenzhen.