CLGO Development Advisory Meeting (2023) & Program Governing Board Meeting and CLGO Digitalized and Intelligent Operations for Globalization Forum successfully held

On the morning of October 14, the CLGO Development Advisory Meeting (2023) & Program Governing Board Meeting was held in Shanghai, and nearly 40 guests from the academic and the industrial world, such as MIT, partner schools & departments in the university, strategic partners and program partners, attended the meeting. Gui Lin (Associate Dean, Graduate School, SJTU), Chen Fangruo (Dean, ACEM, SJTU/Dean, Industry Research Institute, SJTU), Yin Haitao (Associate Dean, ACEM), Luo Jun (Associate Dean, Industry Research Institute, SJTU/Program Director, CLGO, ACEM), Cao Yufeng and Qi Kaiyue (Academic Director, CLGO, ACEM) attended the meeting. The meeting was hosted by the Associate Dean YIN Haitao.

In her speech, Gui Lin, Associate Dean of the Graduate School, SJTU, pointed out that the CLGO program has achieved gratifying results in interdisciplinary cooperation and deep integration of industry and education over the past decade. The CLGO program not only closely combined engineering and social sciences, but also organically connected academia and industry, cultivating a group of outstanding interdisciplinary talents. The CLGO program is a leading example of industry-education integration, and it is hoped that it can bring more experience to the development of multiple disciplines in engineering.

In the speech of Chen Fangruo, the Dean of ACEM & the Dean of Industry Research Institute, SJTU, he reviewed the development history of the CLGO program and pointed out that the CLGO program is a good attempt to introduce the world-leading MIT philosophy into China and allow it to take root. In the future, continuous progress, exploration, and improvement are still needed. In addition, Chen also introduced to the guests the outstanding achievements of ACEM in discipline shaping, and stated that in the future, it will go further in two directions: technology integration and industry research.

Thomas Roemer, the Executive Director of LGO, MIT, introduced the history of MIT LGO program. He pointed out that technology has become one of the main forces driving world change, and the original intention of the LGO program is to inherit technology and cultivate talents. He said that the partnership with the CLGO program means that both parties can continue to share their cutting-edge ideas, which is important for both parties' programs and for the development of the world.

Luo Jun, the Program Director of CLGO, introduced the development history and outstanding achievements of ACEM to the guests, and reported on the program's recent achievements based on CLGO’s background, characteristics, and innovation in industry research. The dual-degree system under cooperation of multiple schools, the highly distinctive "Three-tutor Responsibility System", the I-Plus Internship Program and "Dragon Team" practice projects that promote deep communication between university and enterprises, and more than 40 international and domestic project partners have allowed CLGO program to be highly praised in business schools and widely recognized in the market.

In the part of free speech and communication, the guests gave recommendations actively to the CLGO Program and the development of the college. The guests had a heated discussion on the future development of CLGO in the context of global localization and local globalization, as well as exploring new areas of university-enterprise cooperation for CLGO.

Although Zhang Juan, Director of Human Resources Center, China & Northeast Asia Company, Panasonic, was unable to attend, she mentioned in the shared video that the depth and breadth of partnership between Panasonic and the CLGO Dragon Team projects have been improving, and the topics of the CLGO are deeply aligned with the industry, solving the difficulties in Panasonic's business development. She said that Panasonic hopes to have more opportunities to work with CLGO. Qi Kaiyue, Director of CEE, SEIEE, SJTU & Academic Director of CLGO, ACEM, said in the meeting that SEIEE fully supports the development of the CLGO program and helps students become talents who understand both management and engineering. Joshua Jacobs, Program Co-Director, LGO, MIT, and Guo Jingzhou, Academic Supervisor, School of Mechanical Engineering, MEM Center, also took an active part in the meeting.

In the concluding remarks, the Dean Chen Fangruo thanked the guests for their valuable recommendations and said that the CLGO program should pay more attention to responding to the new challenges faced by enterprises in future talent cultivation. Technology is the primary productivity, talent is the primary resource, and innovation is the primary driving force. We hope to establish closer cooperation with MIT, engineering departments, and enterprises from all over the world in the future to promote the continuous development of the program.

On the afternoon of the same day, the CLGO Digitalized and Intelligent Operations for Globalization Forum was successfully held, hosted by Luo Jun.

In recent years, corporate globalization has faced a series of challenges, and digital intelligent operations have provided an effective solution for enterprises, reshaping the entire business environment, business models, and even organizational structure. This forum aims to share some thoughts and explorations by Chinese enterprises in improving operational management in this context.

Chen mentioned in his speech that MIT’s change from LFM program to LGO program is a change from pioneering to keeping up with the times. He hoped that Chinese enterprises can absorb the world's most advanced concepts, listen to different voices, inherit and improve the cause of the predecessors, and showcase their strength in the global market. He proposed industry research as a very important feature of the college. If the rich experience and classic cases of localization of Chinese enterprises can be summarized into the latest management theory, it will definitely help a lot to future success.

Joshua Jacobs, Program Co-Director of LGO, MIT, believed that learning leadership is a lifelong journey in any context. For graduates with technology and management backgrounds in CLGO program, the limitations in career development do not come from problem-solving abilities and technology backgrounds, but from the lack of understanding of one's own management and leadership style, and the failure to adapt to their living and workplace environments. MIT is attempting to create a new leadership course to help graduates better adapt to the workplace, and CLGO can also learn from it.

Zheng Huan (Director of the Department of Management Science, ACEM, SJTU), He Yinghong (Vice President, Bourne Optical) and Qiao Weixin (General Manager, Shanghai Schneider Industrial Controls Co.) shared their industry insights. With the case of SHEIN, Zheng Huan shared the way that Chinese enterprises, driven by the new digital marketing model, use digitalized and intelligent operations comprehensively to achieve perfect interaction between globalization and localization when entering the international market. He Yinghong proposed methods for creating a digital process that integrates industry, finance, data and technology by managing human nature, providing product quality through technology, and solving information silos. He hoped that the transformation of the enterprise from the domestic market to the international market can be achieved through this approach. Qiao Weixin shared the way that Schneider Electric, as a century-old French multinational company, has shifted from lean production to personalized, resilient, and efficient supply chain management in the face of the impact of pandemic and the changes in business landscape, so as to achieve efficient globalized and localized operations of enterprises.

Connecting with national strategy, serving global development, exporting Chinese wisdom, and implementing the college strategy of "Two types of scholarship, horizontal (academic) and vertical (industry), reinforcing each other and connecting theory with practice”, is the school-running pursuit that has always been engraved in the hearts of Antai people. The China Leaders for Global Operations (CLGO) Program of SJTU gives full play to the superior and distinctive disciplines in engineering and management at SJTU, and is committed to cultivating comprehensive management talents who combine engineering management with practice. This CLGO Development Advisory Meeting & Program Governing Board Meeting and CLGO Digitalized and Intelligent Operations for Globalization Forum were held in the context of exploring a new development model for business schools at ACEM with a history of a century, aiming at deepening the partnership with MIT, engineering schools of SJTU and industry leaders, jointly promoting the integration of industry and education, and creating a new win-win situation of shared value.