China-UK Technology Summit

14 October, 2023 Saturday

Today, as the partner of the China-UK Technology Summit for the second year in a row, I was very fortunate to be able to take two of my science-loving GCSE students to the Summit. The Summit committee kindly offered VIP tickets to the students and a parent to support the younger generation's pursuit of science. Students' current school also supported the idea that events like this will inspire and motivate the pupils' study and kindly permitted their early leave on the last day of that half term.

The Summit was held by a committee formed by Imperial College students. The venue is in Royal Geography Society.

At the summit, we were very fortunate to have heard speeches from Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry Prof. Tomas Lindahl, university chancellor and professors, and professionals from 4 sectors: Future City, Future Life Science, Future Venture, and Future AI. Altogether, it mapped out a picture of what professionals in the science and technology sectors are working at.

The speeches and talks were very inspiring in the sense that they discussed the hot topics that are currently at the centre of each sector. Although GCSE students find them a bit high-end and not directly related to their day-to-day study content, they gave them a vision of what can they potentially do if they work hard on the science subjects.

Here my students have also met many university students and young professionals. The two boys visited Imperial College last year and met some of the current students and ran into a guest speaker session held by one of the senior professors. They had a very good chat about what the study in university is like, and how to prepare for university. This time, in the Summit, they were very happy to meet some of those students and professors again to give an update on their progress. It feels so good that our activities have helped our students build a network of their own and the inspiration and motivation that these young university students (who are a few years older than my students) are an unreplaceable supplement to the teaching in school and at home.

The mother of one of the students came along with us. Coming from a science background and being an engineer herself, she highly praised her experience in the day, saying that she had learnt a lot from the talks and felt very privileged to be at an international conference like this. From this experience, she has gained a better understanding of the science and technology world in the UK, or in the West in general, which is very helpful in her discussion with her child at home regarding career and study.