Participants in the 2026 Campus News Awards hailed their visits to leading enterprises and a research institute in Shenzhen as a memorable experience that has deepened their understanding of homegrown technologies and helped chart new directions for their future career development.
The three-day tour, from Sunday to Tuesday, brought awardees and their teachers from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Southeast Asia to Shenzhen’s tech and manufacturing enterprises and to a research institute, where they got firsthand exposure to the fast-growing innovation ecosystem of the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area. The visit was part of the 2026 Campus News Awards, organized by China Daily.
“What impressed me most were the artificial intelligence-powered urban governance solutions. They can detect disorderly parked shared bikes, support community grid workers in city management, and identify high-risk traffic accident zones,” Cherry Liu, an undergraduate from Hong Kong Baptist University, said after visiting Chinese AI company SenseTime.
“Misplaced shared bikes are an urban management challenge. I believe AI technology can help improve city governance.”
Nemo Hu, another student from HKBU, described the tour of the AI firm as “exciting”, saying the AI solutions could also help Hong Kong ease its labor shortage and improve local public service efficiency.
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Zheng Yudan, a professor of the School of Journalism and Communication at South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, was amazed by the fast-paced technological commercialization. In just one year, the AI projects she saw last year that were still in the incubation stage have hit the market this year.
“Observing this rapid transformation of technology helps young students feel the pulse of the times and see real world tech applications,” she said.
“Young people are a driving force for China’s future. Showing them today’s achievements and future prospects is one of the most important takeaways from this tour. It also gives them clearer references for their career choices and the themes of their journalistic work.”
Chen Hsiou-feng, a teacher from Shih Hsin University in Taiwan, said she was impressed by the combination of AI technology with cute product appearance during the visit to tech consumer brand Z•Pilot’s store in Shenzhen.
“You can feel how rapidly technology is advancing, and life powered by technology will become increasingly convenient in the future,” she said.
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As one of the first group of students from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to participate in the event, Supakit Taengpan, from Thailand’s Mahidol University, praised Shenzhen’s innovation landscape.
“I haven’t seen anything like this back in my home country. The city is filled with cutting edge technologies and impressive modern high rise buildings,” he said.
“I would like to bring the AI glasses I saw here back to Thailand. I want local people in my country to see what the device looks like and understand how it works.”
For Macau University of Science and Technology student He Haijiong, the visit to Shenzhen-headquartered electric vehicle maker BYD offered powerful proof of Chinese manufacturers’ upward transformation.
“Learning about BYD’s core technologies and manufacturing capacity helps break stereotypes that homegrown products equal low quality. In fact, domestic manufacturers are fully capable of advancing into high end industrial sectors,” he said.
The group also visited the Shenzhen Research Institute of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Atlas Shao contributed to this story.
Contact the writer at sally@chinadailyhk.com
