How did three-month internship at SZOIL miraculously change my life in Shenzhen?
After just finishing the first year at university (UNNC), then I started an impressive and extraordinary internship in fascinating Shenzhen! It took nearly 3.5 hours to fly from my hometown — Liaoning province in the north east of China to Shenzhen — an unfamiliar city with fast-paced and diversified modem life and new environment different from my campus life. Shenzhen is such an energetic and burgeoning city with open ecosystem, considerable number of makers and talented people, so almost all innovative ideas can be incubated into real products by using local resources and platform in Shenzhen.
My projects were various since I worked for Global Cooperation Department. As for the first week at SZOIL, all kinds of tasks were given to interns and we were responsible for different tasks, which are suitable for each of us. As an overseas market intern, I was responsible for making business tour schedule, integrity, traffic schedule and canteen reservation, and then I helped to conduct business tours in Shenzhen. In addition, I searched background information and current situations of Shenzhen giant companies, factories, maker space and urban villages. Some translating work was throughout the whole internship and surveying IP cameras was also my task during three months in Shenzhen.
End of June and July:
My initial task was to make a survival guidebook in Shenzhen including finding ways to get to SZOIL from Hong Kong, how to buy SIM card in advance and other essential tips. Putting myself in foreigners’ shoes, I added some solutions to several problems that foreigners would possibly confront, such as feeling quite hard to adapt to local weather — humid and hot in summer and being confused about traffic and Internet access. As a kindly reminder, this to some extent ensured that the program would go on wheels and our Mexican clients could relatively quickly adapt to local environment and Chinese dietary habits.
Spanish group: After a few days, I helped to guide a Spanish team to explore Baishizhou — one urban village in Shenzhen on July 1st. Although I had been to some other suburban places which are sparsely populated and remote, to be honest, it astonished me more than any other this kind of places I went to before due to the unexpected setting in the booming Shenzhen with marked economic growth. During this program, foreign clients probed into this unfamiliar and changing Chinese urban village. Even though Baishizhou faces immanent demolition, it has become Shenzhen’s most iconic urban village and this tour provided us with a chance to know how a large proportion of Shenzhen’s residents live and work in Baishizhou and the history of Shenzhen construction decades ago.
Mexican group:
From June 8th to June 14th, 30 Mexican clients including some professors from Business School and some MBA students came to Shenzhen. For me, I mainly focused on some essential preparations and interpersonal communication problems between Chinese speakers and Mexican during the program. We provided business consulting services which closely linked our clients and Chinese giant companies. In addition, some local immersion programs were given to them to deeply learn more about Shenzhen urban villages and Huaqiangbei.
We firstly started from SFDP & SZOIL with a lecture which deepened the knowledge of Shenzhen’s ‘Shanzhai’ (Grassroot and indigenous innovation) and maker culture, and a 3D printing pen workshop was given to them later. In the following days, we visited several companies, factories, maker space and local well-known universities (e.g. Tencent, Eagle brother, LKK, X-factory, ASH Cloud, Shenzhen valley ventures, Shenzhen university, Graduate School at Shenzhen Tsinghua University etc.)
As for factory, clients could know factory profile and business model, learn more about efficient packing line and the ideas to run a factory by app.
We also visited some companies, which brought in-depth understanding of Shenzhen maker ecosystem and relevant business models as well as innovative products and resources.
X-factory is an ‘open factory’ with production-level equipment for in-house prototyping and small-batch services, as well as co-working spaces for making project. It also helps members connect to Shenzhen vast resources in supply chain as well as industry & market opportunities in China. We had an in-house prototyping laboratory visit here, which broaden my perspective of the development of innovative ideas — prototype — batch production.
In Eagle Brother, we learned about applications of advanced drones in the field of agriculture, their functions and business ideas in product development, such as how to design creatively based on the original products and how to acquire some new modes of thinking.
LKK: What impressed me most in LKK was that it could provide one-stop service: product design, R&D, moulding, production, package, transportation and e-commerce. To be specific, I would like to talk about its marvelous method to gain various and innovative design ideas. By creating an opening and rewarding online platform, it can simply form a two-way profit model, which is mutually beneficial to registered designers and companies. LKK will give rewards to imaginative designers whose products are most satisfying and best for their needs.
Tencent:
It is an Internet-based technology and cultural enterprise headquartered in Shenzhen. With new innovative technology and “user oriented” business philosophy, it has extraordinary status in Chinese Internet industry.
We were given a lecture about frontiers of Internet & science and technology industry.
The lecture included several parts:
a) Real-time high-fidelity digital rendering
b) Eye tracking: the next generation human-machine interaction
c) Sensors in our phones
d) 5G and Cloud game
e) Artificial intelligence
f) Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
I’d like to mention more about the application of eye tracking technology and a visual person introduced in the lecture — “Siren”. For the former, Tencent has recently developed some support eye-tracking tech games.
You can use movement of eyes to control the rotation of blue squares in order to find a tiny part of a whole Chinese traditional painting, after which the whole picture will be shown.
Eye tracking can also be used to improve shooting accuracy in “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” game.
We also knew more about “Siren”, which is a virtual person developed by Tencent and other cooperative companies, and it is currently modeled on a Chinese actress — JIANG Bingjie. Through wearing special equipment on their heads, operators can be imitated by “Siren” in real time in terms of facial expressions and body movement. The equipment can track facial features and then they will be reflected on 3D facial model in real time.
China National Genebank: By visiting CNGB, we knew more about three banks and two platforms of CNGB, including Synthesis and Editing Platform, Digitalization Platform, Living Biobank, Bio-informatics Data Center and Biorepository.
SVV (Shenzhen Valley Ventures): SVV provides various maker hardware equipment and it partners with startups to prototype, test, debug, and manufacture their hardware products.
We also went to Open FIESTA (Open Faculty for Innovation, Education, Science, Technology and Art, Tsinghua University).
On the last day of the tour, we learnt about how the Entrepreneurship Park of Shenzhen University support the campus organization to develop entrepreneurship culture. I got an opportunity to interpret the former part of lecture for the guest speaker from Entrepreneurship Park of Shenzhen University and I prepared this one day in advance by reading whole PPT. Even if I was quite nervous initially, I became relaxed after the introduction part, and finished the task well. During this interpreting process, I found that the accuracy in translation and changing means of expression were essential and I realized my potential to translate better.
Although sometimes it was a bit difficult to get to grips with everything during the business tour since I just started my internship, I worked in an excellent team where members communicated with each other and confronted problems together and it resulted in being much more meaningful and fun than any other activities!
In the following weeks in July and August, here came several interns from England and China, which gave the intern team more ideas and communication, and my work became more multiple and more complicated than before.
Preparing the visiting matters with Rachel (intern) was the mean task for the rest of weeks in July and August.
We searched some information about Huaqiangbei, several giant companies, factories, maker space, urban villages which would be visited, and then added them into Keynote. I focused on the history of the development from 1970s of Huaqiangbei — — a famous electronic commercial market in China. Additionally, overseas market including Africa and France and grassroot open innovation ecosystem were added in the Keynote.
IP camera:
Here was a need from Ghana to buy some IP cameras in Huaqiangbei. This time, Vicky, Rachel, Royce, Eden and I prepared to survey IP camera in HQB and take a vlog for it. I shot a part of video and introduce how to customize or choose your own favorite IP cameras.
Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwFbD3Qly2c
Nearly at the same time, I provided some information including specification, weight & volume and local price of IP cameras by conducting the survey locally and searching online. The specification told the difference among various types of IP camera in terms of pixel, power, smart tracking function, horizontal & vertical panorama, storage ways, connection way, two-way real time voice calls function or just two-way talkback function and voice alarm function. Finally, I provided 3 options about overseas version camera for Ghana.
September:
A Dutch business team came to Shenzhen and Hebei to explore the situation of new energy vehicle in these two cities, which lasted 5 days. I mainly worked on making the schedule and itinerary, translating, reserving restaurants and contacting bus pickup driver in time for Shenzhen part.
In Shenzhen, we primarily visited the City Council of Shenzhen, BYD and the world’s largest charging station — Min Le. Here are some pictures showing the environment and current situation of Min Le charging station. I helped to translate for local drivers and visitors so that the exploration became in-depth and smoother, and I also provided clients with some local information.
Overall, during three months at SZOIL, wide range of work enriched my life in many aspects. Visiting all kinds of enterprises made me know more about characteristics and operation modes of Shenzhen’s maker space, well-known electronic commercial area, industrial design companies, Internet giants, new energy vehicle companies, drone company and urban villages, etc. Furthermore, my interpersonal skills, cooperative ability, information searching & integrating skills were greatly enhanced. So glad and excited to get well acquainted with friendly colleagues of different departments and interesting domestic & international interns at SZOIL! I really appreciate SZOIL’s offering opportunities to associate with different people in society, and I am grateful for SZOIL’s opening characteristics, which provide various possibilities and opportunities to explore Shenzhen more in many parts. Additionally, the help of David Li, Vicky Xie, Ben, Fei, Weiwei, Rachel, Eden, Royce and everyone else at SZOIL really benefited my amazing internship in Shenzhen!
