On October 17th, the opening ceremony for the “Digitalization and Digital Economy” course was held at Guizhou University. Academician Song Bao’an, President of Guizhou University and Wu Pan, the Vice President attended the ceremony. Professor Zhou Aoying, Vice President of East China Normal University, delivered a keynote report titled “From Big Data to Digitalization: A Decade of Exploration for High-Quality Development”. The opening ceremony was live-streamed, leaders of the Academic Affairs Officeand over 500 students from the School of Computer Science and Technology participated.

In order to implement the “advancement of digitalization in education” proposed at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party, and to use digitalization in education as an important breakthrough to open up new tracks and shape new advantages in educational development, Guizhou University aligns with the needs of national and local strategic development. It implements the fundamental task of moral education and talent cultivation, and explores new paths to educate students under the new situation of digital economy development. In September 2023, Guizhou University took a new step by adding the general compulsory course “Digitalization and Digital Economy”, which is offered to freshmen every year, accounting for 1 credit and 16 teaching hours.

Song Bao’an delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. He put forward several requirements for the cultivation of digital economic talents: First, to be practical and explore new paths for talent cultivation to strengthen the foundation of digital talent cultivation and to further improve the applied talent training model; second, to utilize resources and empower digital education to enhance curriculum construction and innovate digital teaching models; third, to explore new ideas and improve the digital faculty team. Implement the project of enhancing the digital economic faculty team at Guizhou University, and improve teachers’ digital capabilities and literacy. He hoped that Guizhou University would further develop the “Digitalization and Digital Economy” course into a high-quality course, contributing more high-quality digital talents to the country.

Zhou Aoying interpreted the origin of big data and its impact on people’s daily lives from five aspects: “A Decade in Review”, “The Origin of Big Data”, “Interpreting Big Data”, “New Momentum from Data” and “Digital Transformation”. He discussed the process and importance of data becoming a new factor of production through annual keywords such as “big data”, “Internet +”, “Dual-Track Supply-Side Reform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, “sharing economy”, “artificial intelligence”, “blockchain”, etc.. He emphasized that data is the driving force for humanity to enter into the digital civilization from the industrial civilization, and young students should seize the opportunities brought by digitalization and make contributions to building a “digitally powerful country”

Before the opening ceremony, Zou Lianke, Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Committee for Education Work, Party Group Secretary and Director of the Provincial Department of Education, and Yang Wei, Party Secretary of Guizhou University, had an exchange with Zhou Aoying.

Editor: Pang Aizhong

Chief Editor: Xiang Song & Li Xufeng

Senior Editor: Yang Nan

Translator: Wang Xiaomin