Recently, the “Volvo, Vision of the Future” Volvo Youth Innovation Program – Innovation-in-Campus Tour, jointly organized by Volvo and the College of Mechanical Engineering, took place at the Songjiang campus of Donghua University. With the theme of “Innovations in Sustainable Mobility”, this event, featuring both a “Science and Innovation Camp” and an “Innovation-in-Campus Tour”, provided a platform for dialogue with future innovative talents. A total of 248 students from 13 majors, including mechanical engineering, industrial design, textile engineering, product design, and fashion creativity and design, registered for the event. In the end, 48 students were selected for the Science and Innovation Camp.
(Greeting speech by Mr. Wang Xinhou, Secretary of the Party Committee of College of Mechanical Engineering)
(Per Edberg, Head of Vehicle Engineering, R&D China, Volvo, was introducing the company and the project)
As the inaugural stop of “Volvo, Vision of the Future” Volvo Youth Innovation Program, Donghua University organized the “Science and Innovation Camp” on October 14th and 15th. During the two-day Science and Innovation Campus tour, design thinking innovation mentor Lin Zhe and numerous Volvo corporate experts provided training sessions for participating students, focusing on fostering innovative thinking and skills through brainstorming, expert interviews, user research, and group presentations. Within the camp, eight groups of students showed their innovative mobility solutions, leading to four teams being finalized for this event. Through on-site presentations, two students from the College of Mechanical Engineering’s Industrial Design program were awarded the MVP (Most Valuable Player) title and received a study tour qualification to Volvo’s headquarter in Sweden.
The College of Mechanical Engineering has always attached great importance to cultivating top innovative talents and regards high-quality development as the primary task and talent as the foremost resource. Through the approach of “theoretical linkages, organizational collaborations, and project-based co-creation”, it has managed to seize the crucial aspect of high-quality development in advanced manufacturing. Actively engaging in “group-style” targeted, institutionalized, and branding-oriented collaboration, strengthening the cooperation and connection among government, university, enterprise, and social organizations, it continuously explores new paths and models for integrating industry, academia, and research for inclusive development. By focusing on national strategies and regional economic and social development, it is committed to strengthening the development planning of emerging engineering disciplines, actively expanding practical educational bases, emphasizing the cultivation of students’ innovation and entrepreneurship capabilities, and fostering a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship on campus, with the goal to incubate a group of outstanding engineers who possess outstanding technological innovation abilities, are adept at solving complex engineering problems, and meet the needs of enterprises and the requirements of modernization. And this will provide intellectual support and talent treasure for achieving Chinese-style modernization.