The Alliance of Guangzhou International Sister-City Universities this April held their first series of two of many planned online professional development programs for its new Digital and Entrepreneurship Academy. Unanimously approved by our members during our annual meeting in December 2020, these two programs were initially offered free of charge to the students of our Alliance members, industry representatives, area officials and alumni each member university invited.

Our first Digital Academy program, The Necessity of Blockchain Immutability in Safeguarding Valuable Data, offered on April 15 was led by Professor Denis Bastieri and Gianluca Giorgi from the University of Padova. Our second program, Venture Makers “Generate” Program, offered on April 22 was led by Inu Rana and Brad Twynham from Western Sydney University.

Nine of our thirteen members Alliance members took part in these programs with more than 500 participants in attendance. Members immediately shared their excitement about our new Academy and how these programs have aroused the interest of their participants. Students especially enjoyed the opportunity to further learn from faculty and business leaders throughout the world and get acquainted with the activities of our Alliance and members.

Our next series of Academy programs will be offered this fall by our colleagues from the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”. These two programs will include Entrepreneurship and Business 4.0 and Entrepreneurship and Leadership 4.0. More Alliance members will be joining the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” to offer future programs in the fields of Interfacing Machines, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Big Data, Smart Production, Advanced Manufacturing, State of the Art Technologies or Entrepreneurship,