The First Enterprise Partnership Summit, organized by International Centre for Higher Education Innovation (Shenzhen, China) under the auspices of UNESCO (hereinafter referred to as "Innovation Center") and its International Institute of Online Education (IIOE), was successfully held on January 14, 2022, with the theme of "Connecting and Co-Building the Digital Future of Higher Education". Through the discussion on the trend and relevant practices of global higher education digital transformation, this summit provides a multilateral exchange platform for stakeholders in the field of global higher education, including international organizations, partner universities and enterprises, and helps build the global higher education digital transformation ecology. Business representatives from 56 countries in many regions of the world, representatives of UNESCO, representatives of global institutions of higher education and top scholars were invited to attend and present.

At the opening session of the conference, Mr. QIN Changwei, Secretary General of the People's Republic of China for UNESCO, Mr. Shahbaz KHAN, Director, UNESCO Cluster Office in Beijing, and Mr. LU Chun, UNESCO-ICHEI Deputy Director, Sustech Vice President delivered speeches respectively. They expressedthat with regard to the new experience and new model of profound changes in the digital transformation of higher education, there is a need to establish new talent training objectives, strengthen the cooperation between schools, research institutions and enterprises, promote the close cooperation between China and the world in higher education and technology, and strengthen the cooperation with UNESCO. Mr. Shahbaz KHANencouraged global enterprises to take the initiatives in collaborating with governments and international organizations to design scalable innovative funding mechanisms to secure the financial resources needed to unleash the full potential of ICT for learning in line with the 2030 education agenda. Mr. LU Chun emphasisedjoint efforts from universities, enterprises, and intergovernmentalorganizations, and the University-Industry Partnership in education projects for higher education reform and innovation.

Keynote speech

In the keynote speech, Mr. YANG Zongkai, Deputy Leader of the second education informatization expert group of the Ministry of Education, President of Wuhan University of Technology, delivered a featured keynote on "The Foundation for Education Digital Transformation: New Infrastructure for Education" andconcludedthe six key directions for the new educational infrastructure，includingdigital resource, smart campus, information network, innovation application, platform system, and trustworthy security.Mr. HAN Xibin, Tsinghua University Institute of Education Deputy Director, delivered a keynote speech entitled "Challenges and Strategies for Higher Education Digital Transformation". In his speech, Mr. Han mentionedin the transformation stage of higher education from informatization to digitization,andpresented the unique connotation of the information age andhowthe “technology-focused” theory has dominated education transformation through technology. Additionally,the “event-driven” approach has brought about many issues in promoting education reforms. The solutionsare to change the mindset of “digital transformation of educationthat onlyconcerns the field of education”, to understand the nature of the digital transformation of HE and its relationship with other systems, to integrate resources and services in other sectors of society to promote systemic changes in HE, to develop a clear vision and policy for the digital transformation of HE that reflects the concerns of all parties. From the perspective of international think tanks, Ms. ZHANG Yu'an, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) Policy and Economics Research Institute Senior Engineer, published a thematic report entitled "Education Digital Transformation under Global Governance". In terms ofdigital economics, shepointed outthe policy path for policymakers to promote education digitalization and the role of the third parties in promoting the digitalization of education, andconcluded that education is asignificantpart of promoting a community with a shared future for mankind.Finally, Mr. LI Yu, General Manager of Tencent Cloud Higher Education Business, shared the topic of "Higher Education Digitalisation Industry Collaboration Case Sharing" from the perspective of enterprises. He mentioned thatTencent education is committed to playing the role of "science and technology assistant in the era of intelligent education".Tencent education builds a digital base of intelligent education with cloud-related technologies to help make education fair, personalized, and intelligent.The Tencent conference made outstanding contributions in epidemic communication, simultaneous interpreting technology and online teaching.

Enterprise sharing

Representatives of top global enterprise partners from ICT and educational technology industries presented in the enterprise sharing session. In the field of international organizations and global enterprises jointly building higher education digitization, Mr. Ma Yue, Huawei Vice President, Huawei Enterprise Business Group EVP and EBG Global Partner Development and Sales President, delivered a speech on "Make the Talent Ecosystem Prosperous. Realize the Digital Future of Higher Education Together".He shared Huawei's wisdom from three aspects, including talent demand, cooperation betweenuniversitiesand enterprises for talent cultivation, and sustainable development.Huawei will build an open, harmonious, mutually beneficial, and sustainable ICT talent ecosystem, bridge the global digital divide, and promote digital inclusion for a sustainable future where everyone can enjoy equal access to education.Mr. ZHANG Shirong, Board Chair, Wisdom Palace Cultural Industry Group,shared new challenges and changes faced by the internationalization, industrialization and marketization of Higher Education.Business partner representatives from Wedon Cloud Education, Guangzhou Createview Education Technology shared wonderful cases on the cooperation of education new infrastructure enterprises. Mr. WANG Zhiqian, Vice President of Wedon Cloud Education, delivered a speech on "Enhance the capacity building of talent by educational informationization in digital era".Wedon Cloud Education has built a digital talent development platform and offline hybrid digital talent development and training platform through "Wedon smart classroom" based on both the layout of global education industry, and domestic business.Mr. ZHANG Yu, Board Chair, Guangzhou Createview Education Technology, sharednew education infrastructure experience.CreateView closely cooperates with ICHEI for building their own ‘the Belt and Road initiative’ for development, providing ICT teaching tools and smart classrooms for higher education institutions in countries along the routes to enhance teachers' ICT application ability. Through the international cooperation strategy of scientific and technological innovation and industry-university research cooperation with many foreign universities, we create an international scientific and technological innovation ecology, and CreateView is expected to contribute to the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.Mr. DENG Yigang, CEO, Guangzhou Shirui Electronic Technology (Seewo), mentioned thatdigital technology can bring unimaginable changes to the classroom. Though there is a long way to go, Seewois committed to promoting quality-oriented teaching methods, entering every classroom and serving every teacher.

The digital transformation of global higher education has become the general trend. Director LI Ming expressed the hope to build a professional think tank led by UNESCO. With the full cooperation of Professor CHEN Jiangang of Tsinghua University and other teams, the Innovation Center has made a series of achievements in this field, and will report relevant achievements at the third World Higher Education Conference, so as to provide the world with cases, standards and experience of digital transformation of higher education.

From "North-South cooperation" to "North-South-South cooperation", Director LI Ming pointed out that he hopes to use the strength of UNESCO to attract more developed countries to integrate into the process of digital transformation of higher education. The Innovation Center will continue to support enterprises in their global expansion, provide digital solutions for the transformation of higher education, and further carry out multilateral and diversified cooperation with enterprises.