Distinguished guests, leaders, professors, teachers, fellow students, welcome! I am Guo Tianzi, a class of 2018 undergraduate of Shude College who majored in material sciences and engineering. First of all, on behalf of all the graduates, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to SUSTech its faculty members. I am very honored to stand here to speak as a graduate representative.

I believe everyone was asked this question during the independent recruitment interview, “Why have you chosen SUSTech?” I still remember my answer clearly, “I want to achieve entrepreneurship through research!” The interview panel was clearly shocked by my answer, and they all laughed. Professor Cheng Xin at the panel told me: “You have a lot to learn before becoming an entrepreneur, and you need to step up your game AT SUSTech!” Four years have passed in a blink of an eye, and I am now a research entrepreneur with my own company. Professor Cheng, I guess you didn’t expect that (said jokingly)!

Retired basketball superstar Kobe Bryant has a reputation for hard work, and his most famous line is “Do you know what Los Angeles looks like at 4 a.m.?” I believe many SUSTechers have seen SUSTech at 4.a.m. multiple times due to working to meet deadlines. Do you still remember the most popular places to spend the night studying? The 24-hour self-study room, the laboratories at Research Building #2, and the lakeside activity rooms at residential college area, to name but a few. Like others, my dark circle has grown a lot over the years, but I also earned a good GPA and engaged in many rewarding activities. The only thing I’m different from most of you is that I chose to become an entrepreneur rather than a graduate student or company employee. My choice wouldn’t be possible without SUSTech’s nurture, which values diversity and encourages us to follow our hearts.

My entrepreneur dream did not only come from pure passion but was based on solid research. During sophomore year, I entered Professor Sun Dazhi’s soft materials laboratory and chose to work on carbon fiber composite because it is an innovative and promising field. However, nobody had ever researched in this field before. Therefore, I needed to conduct preliminary research, design the research plan and carried out the experiment all by myself. I soon found that it was impossible to do it on my own. Luckily, four of my peers came to my rescue. We built a research team, went through numerous failures, and managed to make some breakthroughs after a year of hard work. These advances earned us a few prizes, patents and funding from companies. Because of the companies’ involvement, I realized that my entrepreneur dream could actually come true.

Starting a business has been my dream since I was little, but it’s definitely not easy. My teammate and I faced many difficulties in carrying on the carbon fiber composite project: many performance tests required very advanced laboratory conditions and devices that are extremely hard to find. Fortunately, Professor Sun Dazhi inspired me to work on the problem from a different angle: we had developed a number of core technologies, one of which could be applied to resin’s nano-coating. After realizing the technology’s substantial commercialization, I transformed the initial academic research project into the foundation of her own fluorophosgene nanotechnology company. I come from Dongyang, Jinhua City, where local people are all very hard-working. Dongyang is located in Zhejiang Province, which is well-known for the residents’ pragmatic spirit. And now I’ve spent a few years in Shenzhen, where innovation is the main driving force. The combination of being hard-working, pragmatic and innovative led me to decide to start my own business. Considering the high demand for innovative technologies and favorable start-up business policies implemented by the Shenzhen government, I gave up the opportunity of furthering my study in Hong Kong and chose to achieve my entrepreneur dream in Shenzhen.

Entrepreneurship can be risky, but I don’t think SUSTechers should worry about that. Most of us got good grades in the National College Entrance Examination for years ago, but we chose SUSTech over other widely recognized Project 985 and 211 universities. The moment we made that decision, we became SUSTechers with the adventurous spirit similar to that of entrepreneurs. We faced doubts and rumors about SUSTecher together, overcame the pressure, and proved them wrong with our achievements today. Before entering SUSTech, we were told in school to fall in line rather than follow our hearts. It’s not easy to stay true to yourself, and I am glad that I have the support I need to become who I really am. I want to thank my parents who fostered my independent thinking skills; I want to thank my research project’s teammates who went through every single obstacle with me; I want to thank my advisor who shaped my strong personality, and I also want to thank SUSTech who made my entrepreneur dream come true.

On behalf of the class of 2018 undergraduates, I would like to thank SUSTech, all faculty members, helpful alumni and the city of Shenzhen. We cannot become who we are without your help, and we believe it’s only the beginning of our successful journey!

In addition, we have a gift for the university – a glazed glass tripod. I hope that President Chen can accept this gift on behalf of the university and accept our best wishes for the future.