The "2024 Top notch Innovative Talents Joint Training Series Seminar" hosted by Shenzhen X-Institute and organized by Shanghai Jiao Tong University was successfully held in Shanghai recently. Vice Dean of the Faculty of Data Science at City University of Macau, Tianqing Zhu, academic leader of the Faculty of Health and Wellness, Pei Sun, and over 100 representatives from 28 universities including Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University, and University of Science and Technology of China attended the conference. 

As a joint overseas cooperative university, City University of Macau and Shenzhen X-Institute will establish an honor class in the Bachelor's degree program of the Faculty of Data Science in the 2024/2025 academic year, creating a new model for cultivating innovative talents in the field of data science. 

Quanshui Zheng, an academician of the CAS Member and the founding president of Shenzhen X-Institute, gave special guidance on the selection mode, training objectives, training scheme, students' future expectations, and the undergraduate, master and doctoral joint training mode of the honorary class of City University of Macau, and defined the training mode and development goals of the honorary class in the coming years. Academician Quanshui Zheng pointed out that the development of the Honorary Class at City University of Macau aims to be at the forefront of the data industry in certain specific directions, and to reach a new level of development on the basis of the Faculty of Data Science at City University of Macau. 

Luping Xu, Vice Dean of Xingjian College at Tsinghua University, has many years of training experience in the Tsien Hsue-shen class. In his conversation, he mentioned that the development of the Honor Class at City University of Macau should drive the common development of other teachers and students in the college. In the process of developing and constructing the Honor Class, he will closely monitor and provide guidance and looks forward to cultivating more outstanding students in future cooperation. 

At the seminar, Academician Quanshui Zheng, Director of Academic Affairs at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Junliang Zhang, and Vice Dean of the School of Mechanics and Aerospace at Dalian University of Technology, Hongfei Ye, analyzed the current situation and challenges of innovative talent cultivation based on their own and their respective universities' educational research practices. They deeply and systematically shared their experiences in education reform and new models for innovative talent cultivation. 

In the group discussion session, representatives from major universities were divided into three categories - discussing the joint construction of top-notch classes/academies, optimizing the existing top-notch class training system, ecological construction/resource aggregation and sharing/local club co construction, and conducted a one-day group discussion. 

After the group discussion, Vice Dean Tianqing Zhu reported to the delegates at the conference on the background of the Faculty of Data Science at City University of Macau and the future training plan for the honor class. In the future, we will follow the training model of the Tsien Hsue-shen class at Tsinghua University, combined with the local characteristics and advantages of Macau, to establish an honor class with the characteristics of the City University of Macau, and contribute wisdom and strength to the cultivation of top-notch innovative talents in Macau. 

In this seminar, all cooperating units reached a consensus to jointly build a more universal and effective model for cultivating top-notch innovative talents based on the underlying logic of the Tsien Hsue-shen class model at Tsinghua University and the joint implementation of projects by various schools.