On April 6, 2024, SJTU "ACM&APEX Alumni Association Series of Activities" was grandly held at the Guangbiao Building at Minhang Campus. Hu Weiwei, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Cice President of SJTU; Gu Lun, Party Secretary and Chairman of Caohejing Development Zone Management Company; Xia Weiliang, Associate Dean of Zhiyuan College and Consultant of the Alumni Association; and Xue Guangtao, Secretary General of Party Branch of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering and consultant of the Alumni Association, are invited to attend the event and deliver speeches. Yu Yong, Honorary Chairman of the ACM&APEX Alumni Association and Program Director of the Computer Science Program (ACM class) of Zhiyuan College, and more than 200 alumni from the ACM class & APEX lab around the world gathered to celebrate the 128th anniversary of their alma mater.
Hu Weiwei warmly welcomed the alumni to back to the campus and expressed high appreciation for Teacher Yu Yong's years of dedicated contributions to the ACM class. Secretary Hu thanked Caohejing Development Zone for providing an excellent industrial platform for the alumni association to return for entrepreneurship and hopes that alumni can contribute more to the construction of the nation as well as Shanghai's Science and Innovation Center and the leading industry of artificial intelligence through the ACM&APEX Alumni Center. She mentioned that Jiao Tong University will always be the spiritual home for the alumni and will fully support them, including providing better platforms and services. She looks forward to the alumni frequently coming back home.
Xia Weiliang and Xue Guangtao warmly welcomed the guests and alumni, thanking Teacher Yu Yong for his consistent dedication to the education of talents in computer science over the years. As consultants of the Alumni Association, they stated that they have witnessed the glory of the ACM class and welcome alumni to often return to the school and college to reunite. They anticipate that the alumni will make greater contributions to the nation's development by fully utilizing the industry-academia-research platform during the current boom in computer science and artificial intelligence.
Gu Lun shared the long-term and in-depth cooperative history between Caohejing Development Zone and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, noting that the ACM&APEX alumni are a particularly valued target service and cooperation group for innovation and entrepreneurship in the Caohejing Development Zone. He hopes that the industrial platform of the park can deeply connect ACM class alumni resources through the establishment of the alumni association, providing high-quality entrepreneurial stages for the alumni, and realizing a strong union between Caohejing Development Zone and the elite group of ACM&APEX alumni.
The main forum of the conference focused on "Technology Development and Talent Training in the Era of Large Models". The opening ceremony was presided over by Wang Haofen, who once pursued his Ph.D. at the APEX lab and is now a professor at Tongji University and co-founder of LeYan Technology. Zhang Weinan, the deputy head of the Computer Science Department at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and an alumnus of the 2007 ACM class, gave an annual report on the Alumni Association's work. He shared detailed data on the latest developments of the alumni, as well as academic and scientific research trends, and the proud achievements made since the establishment of the Alumni Association.
Honorary Chairman of the ACM&APEX Alumni Association, founder of ACM class and Boyu Education, distinguished professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and leading figure of the "National High-level Talents Special Support Plan" —— Professor Yu Yong, a well-known teacher, introduced to the guests and audience in detail the construction plan and development blueprint of the Caohejing ACM&APEX Alumni Center. Professor Yu fondly recalled the original intent and history of the ACM class creation, mentioning that the ACM&APEX alumni center embodies the concept of "Gathering Hearts, Wisdom, and Strength", and serves as a precious resource and wealth for both the university and society. The establishment of the ACM&APEX Alumni Center will become an important force and innovative carrier for the school to promote talent training, enhance the level of teaching and scientific research, drive deep cooperation between schools and enterprises, support on-campus students' further education and employment, continue to pass on culture and spirit, and comprehensively give back to society.
Competition in today's world is essentially a competition in education and talent training. Only by providing first-rate education and producing top-class talents can we build a first-class country. The ACM&APEX Alumni Center will continuously explore innovative working models of industry, education, and research, deeply cultivate the fertile soil of alumni resources, and persistently build innovative cooperative bridges between alumni and parks and high-tech industries. It aspires to fulfill the beautiful vision of fragrant peaches and plums nurturing back the alma mater and promoting social progress and the development of cutting-edge technology.
Following the opening ceremony, the alumni association held three cutting-edge technology seminars at Zhiyuan College.
The first sub-forum focused on frontier academics under the theme "The Theory, Algorithms, and Applications in the Era of Large Models". The forum invited Zhang Chihao to preside, and alumni guests Zhang Jiaheng, Ren Kan, Tu Kewei, Zhang Jianfu, and Qiu Lin brought their presentations entitled "Provably Robust Multi-bit Watermarking for AI-generated Text via Error Correction Code", "Towards Data Science Copilots", "Probabilistic Transformer", "The Rise and Challenges of Diffusion Models in Visual Content Generation", and "RefChecker: Reference-based Fine-grained Hallucination Checker and Benchmark for Large Language Models". They led the audience in a deep exploration of the related cutting-edge technological content, offering deeper insights and understanding into the new research directions in the "Era of Large Models".
The second sub-forum was an entrepreneurship salon, centered around "Entrepreneurial Opportunities and Challenges in the Era of Large Models". Alumni from the ACM class, who have distinguished themselves, discussed the emerging entrepreneurial opportunities and challenges in the age of large data models. The event invited Zhou Jian, founder of Lanma Technology, as the moderator, with guests including Gu Bing, shareholder and investment research director of Hanyuan Assets, Hu Zheren, managing director of Oasis Capital, Xu Ruohao, founder and CEO of YiZhi Electronics, and Xue Guirong, founder and CEO of Tianrang Intelligent Technology. The leading alumni shared profound insights on "How Technology Drives Globalization" based on their entrepreneurial experiences and global perspectives. Subsequently, participants engaged in a lively and profound roundtable discussion with elite from the research and industrial sectors, intensely discussing entrepreneurial thoughts and models, and gaining valuable insights and recommendations on cutting-edge technology.
The third sub-forum was highly popular among current students, focusing on "Academic Development and Career Choices in the New Era". Hu Yuncong, a senior alumnus from academia, presided over the forum. Alumni guests Yang Kuan, Chen Shuang, Zheng Lianmin, Zhang Kaiyi, and Zhao Yilong shared the latest front-end information from the academic and industrial circles based on their own experiences, as well as their successful experiences and insights into further studies applications. Alumni in the audience were very active during the Q&A session, engaging enthusiastically with the guests, practicing the ACM class motto of "Hand in hand, surpassing" in their interactions.