Today we began the day early by taking the bus from Wuxi to Shanghai. We arrived at Fudan University where we were given a tour of the only key state lab in China which is specialized in Integrated Circuit (IC) Design. Besides the (always interesting) high frequency equipment and we looked at the software solution used by the university to automate measurements of high volume port systems. This software solution is prominently used to quickly test the all the logic gates of a specific IC, a test which manually would be nearly to impossible due to the high amount of gates present in modern day ICs.
We ended the tour by seeing the students workplaces and offices, which was a nice look into the student’s life at Fudan University.
We continued our day by having a quick lunch at a local shopping center. It was interesting to see how here in Shanghai the service staff appeared to in general have a better English knowledge than in other cities we have visited. Of course this knowledge was limited but it was surprising how the knowledge of a few words like “rice” could make a difference. After lunch we headed to Philips.
At Philips were were given a presentation about the history and future of Philips, including their new focus on innovation, and the role of the China innovation Hub. It was explained to us how Philips believes in Open Innovation and is now focusing on the development of personal care and healthcare.
During our visit we also had the opportunity to form three groups to make our own presentation about a few questions given by Philips. The questions were namely about the differences between China and Holland in the field of innovation, as well as data privacy problems. The meeting was very interactive where we had very interesting discussions about the presentations as well as an open discussion about the differences between innovation and inventions. We had a very nice day at Phillips filled with interesting discussions and our professors were also very generously gifted with a souvenir of the China Innovation Hub.
We ended our day by arriving at the Hotel, from which we have a beautiful view of the Shanghai skyline. After enjoying the view some of us were not satisfied enough with the view so continued the night at a ‘sky bar’ in Shanghai, where others instead enjoyed the swimming pool at the hotel. All in all, it was a beautiful day, blessed by the weather which was a little cooler than normally today, and where we learned and shared a lot knowledge at both Fudan University as well as Phillips.
