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The top ten Baidu Scholarships in 2021 were released: a total of 20 million yuan has been invested to cultivate China's top AI talents

On December 24, the list of the top ten Baidu Scholarships in 2021 was released. Since its establishment in 2013, the Baidu Scholarship has been held for 9 consecutive years, with a total investment of nearly 20 million yuan to cultivate China's top AI talents. Baidu founder, chairman and CEO Robin Li will present awards to 10 top Chinese AI scholars at the Baidu AI Developer Conference on December 27.

Baidu Scholarship, a scholarship incentive program for Chinese students majoring in artificial intelligence in the world's top universities, is one of the academic scholarships with the highest amount and gold content in the field of AI, with the goal of cultivating outstanding Chinese intelligent talents.

The research directions of this year's Baidu Scholarship winners focus on innovative fields such as algorithms, data recognition, autonomous driving, and biomedicine, namely: Ding Ning of Tsinghua University, Wu Qitian of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Ren Hongyu of Stanford University, Hu Ziniu of the University of California, Los Angeles, Ding Mingyu of the University of Hong Kong, Lianhui Qin of the University of Washington, Hanzhi Wang of Chinese Min University, Yulin Wang of Tsinghua University, Zhang Qisheng of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Guo Lanzhe of Nanjing University.

The top ten Baidu Scholarships in 2021 were released: a total of 20 million yuan has been invested to cultivate China's top AI talents

(2021 Baidu Scholarship Winners)

The winners of this year's Baidu Scholarship are from famous universities at home and abroad, representing that the professional level of China's AI innovation talents has been at the forefront of the world. However, at the same time, the current talent gap in the direction of artificial intelligence in China is still huge, and the training of AI talents is still one of the bottlenecks restricting scientific research and industrial development. Baidu said that in the next 5 years, Baidu will focus on eight key technologies including autonomous driving, machine translation, biocomputing, deep learning framework, digital city operation, knowledge management, AI chips, and personal intelligent assistants to cultivate 5 million AI talents for society.

Focus on the pain points of domestic AI talent training, and explore new directions for the integration of teaching and research

According to the "China New Generation Artificial Intelligence Technology Industry Development Report 2020" report, the current GAP of AI talents in China exceeds 5 million people, and the supply and demand ratio of AI talents is only 1:10, and the imbalance between supply and demand is obvious. At the national level, the Ministry of Education, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued guidance to accelerate the cultivation of talents in the field of artificial intelligence and moderately expand the scale of postgraduate training.

In August this year, Baidu established Baidu Songguo Academy, with the aim of making it easier and more convenient for everyone to obtain AI knowledge. In view of the two mountains of "teachers are difficult to teach and students are difficult to learn", to solve the practical problems of insufficient discipline construction and insufficient integration of industry and education, Baidu continues to invest resources, platforms and funds to cultivate high-quality AI talents in China.

Front-line teachers are an important bridge to help AI talents reach industrial applications from scientific research knowledge. To this end, Baidu has carried out in-depth teaching and research integration with more than 700 domestic universities, deeply integrated into the university ecology through teacher training and other projects, and infiltrated the cultivation of college talents from the source.

The top ten Baidu Scholarships in 2021 were released: a total of 20 million yuan has been invested to cultivate China's top AI talents

(The 14th National College Deep Learning Teacher Training Course Site)

At the same time, Baidu has also set up a "Pinecone Fund" for front-line teachers, which has provided millions of yuan of project funds and multi-dimensional support and services such as platforms, data, and technologies, with a total value of more than 10 million.

Lu Bibo, director of the School of Computer Science and Technology of Henan Polytechnic University, said that as one of the first teachers to participate in teacher training, he introduced Baidu's open source deep learning platform PaddlePaddle into the university open class, using the most cutting-edge practical information, combined with the deep learning, core training and development model of the flying paddle platform to help students get started quickly, and using research and development to test the learning results of students, with remarkable results.

At present, Baidu has carried out in-depth talent training strategic cooperation with more than 100 colleges and universities across the country, trained more than 3,000 front-line teachers who teach AI courses in more than 700 colleges and universities, and jointly built nearly 500 AI courses with colleges and universities, helping teachers optimize ai-related professional courses and student practice application platforms to improve teaching quality.

Promote learning through competition and cultivate AI talents who can "produce results"

In addition to the exclusive training for AI teachers, Baidu has also continued to increase investment for students majoring in artificial intelligence in colleges and universities to help students learn in practice and improve in innovation. Through Baidu Star, the "Belt and Road" International Big Data Competition, the China University Computer Competition Artificial Intelligence Creativity Competition and other domestic top competitions, we will give ample prize money support and practical exchange opportunities, and constantly improve the ability to fly the paddle to help students land their ideas more simply.

In recent years, AI talents have emerged in Baidu's various competitions, and the trend of young talents has continued to spread. At the 2020 Baidu Star Competition, Chen Yifan from the sixth grade of Lu Xun Primary School became the youngest finalist in history, and Baidu's vision of making AI learning simpler and more equal is also being realized.

The top ten Baidu Scholarships in 2021 were released: a total of 20 million yuan has been invested to cultivate China's top AI talents

(2020 Baidu Star Finals)

At the same time, the artificial intelligence projects of AI students in colleges and universities have also taken advantage of the competition. In the national college computer competition sponsored by Baidu, cases with unique social significance emerge one after another: some teacher training students use the AI system to create the "nemesis" of the 37 pest control; and some international students use the flying paddle module to generate an "intelligent dictionary" for the endangered languages of ethnic minorities, so that the cultural history of ethnic minorities can be passed on. In addition to the competition, there are also Gansu university students who are dedicated to building desert tree planting robots and making the desert an oasis a reality. On December 29, 2021, at the talent sub-forum of the 2021 Baidu AI Developer Conference, these university developers will also bring wonderful sharing.

The top ten Baidu Scholarships in 2021 were released: a total of 20 million yuan has been invested to cultivate China's top AI talents

(Desert robot beach experimental test)

In the development of artificial intelligence by leaps and bounds, talent has always been the core driving force of the national strategic scientific and technological strength. In the next five years, Baidu will also focus on eight key technologies including autonomous driving, machine translation, biocomputing, deep learning framework, digital city operation, knowledge management, AI chips and personal intelligent assistants, to cultivate 5 million innovative, cross-border and open AI talents for the society, and jointly continue to explore the infinite possibilities in the field of artificial intelligence.

Leifeng Network

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