Liu Duanyang, a "prodigy in the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China" who has previously set off a hot discussion on the Internet, has been accused of "falsifying academic qualifications", and his undergraduate degrees and so-called master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Science and Technology of China are fake.
Introduction
Regarding the true identity of Liu Duanyang, the recent "prodigy of the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China", "Intellectuals" has made some research.
"Intellectuals" found that Liu Duanyang never studied under Stanford Professor Christopher Manning. He was actually a student of the second class of materials science and engineering metal materials of Hefei University of Technology in 2003, and dropped out of school in his sophomore or junior year. In 2009, he was suspected of enrolling in the School of Information of Northeastern University, and in 2013, he had a short internship in the KEG laboratory of Tsinghua University.
Written by | Wei Yi
Responsible editor| Chen Xiaoxue
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From 2016 to 2021, Liu Duanyang established more than a dozen companies, signed cooperation agreements with many local governments, and settled in high-tech parks in Suzhou, Dalian, Qingdao and Lvliang, of which shenzhen companies have received multiple rounds of financing.
His name appears on CCTV's entrepreneurship program and in the British media "The Economist", and the company he founded employs 300,000 data annotators in some poor provinces in China.
Recently, the entrepreneur was accused of "falsifying his academic qualifications", not only because his undergraduate degree at the University of Science and Technology of China (hereinafter referred to as "The University of Science and Technology of China") is not true, but also the so-called master's and doctoral degrees are also fake.
On September 13, the University of Science and Technology of China Xinchuang Alumni Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the "Xinchuang Foundation") caused a hot discussion in an article on "cracking down on counterfeiting", which pointed out that Liu Duanyang, one of China's largest AI data labeling companies, the founder of Shenzhen Mobi Hi ke Raspberry Pi Intelligent Robot Co., Ltd., claimed that he was "admitted to the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 12", was a "master of Tsinghua University" and "Doctor of Stanford University", under the tutelage of Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Professor Christopher Manning. These resumes are forgeries.
"Intellectuals" has been confirmed by many parties that Liu Duanyang has never studied with Christopher Manning, a professor at Stanford University. He was actually a student of the second class of materials science and engineering metal materials of Hefei University of Technology in 2003, and dropped out of school in his sophomore or junior year. In 2009, he was suspected of enrolling in Northeastern University majoring in computer science, and in 2013, he had a short internship in the KEG laboratory of Tsinghua University.
However, in the resume information provided to government departments and academic institutions, Liu Duanyang wrote about his academic experience of "Tsinghua University Master" and "Stanford University Doctor", and these "brilliant" resumes have become the publicity points for the funds he raised after founding the company in 2016, and have repeatedly appeared in media reports.
So, who is Liu Duanyang's real identity?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="25" > did not enroll in the University of Science and Technology of China, but studied in Hefei</h1>
In an article on its WeChat public account, the Xinchuang Foundation pointed out that Liu Duanyang claimed that he was "admitted to the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 12", while the foundation did not find Liu Duanyang's name after looking up all the students in the first junior class of the 78th grade and all the undergraduate students admitted after the Cultural Revolution at the University of Science and Technology of China. At the same time, they consulted the alumni directory and asked the relevant teachers, all of which confirmed that there was no such person.
The head of the foundation told The Intellectuals that they found that a large number of articles in the media used the phrase "China University of Science and Technology Junior Class" when describing Liu Duanyang, so they did a detailed investigation. Due to privacy concerns, the person in charge did not want to be named.
If you have not studied at the University of Science and Technology of China, then what is Liu Duanyang's academic qualifications?
"Intellectuals" contacted a number of graduates of hefei University of Technology's 2003 class of materials science and engineering metal materials, who confirmed that Liu Duanyang was their classmate and provided photos as evidence.
Group photo of Liu Duanyang and his classmates at a class activity in 2004 (sophomore year). Courtesy of respondents.
The graduates said they had seen Liu Duanyang's report two years ago and had noticed the contents of his resume and thought he should not hide his study experience at the University. At the time, they tried to post on the Web to point this out, but they didn't get attention.
According to public information, Liu Duanyang is from Guyuan, Ningxia, which was also confirmed by his classmates. A classmate said that at that time, those who could be admitted to Hefei University of Technology were at least students who had taken a type of undergraduate line in various provinces. One of the students recalled that unlike other students who were shy, Liu Duanyang had a loud voice and "sang a song of "Little Poplar" on the first day of college self-introduction. He also applied to be the class president for a period of time, taking on the housekeeping of the class.
In the subsequent relationship, their impression is that Liu Duanyang is "not very social", and "loves to talk big" and "loves to brag". One classmate recalled that he "read some management books" and wanted to "change the world." At that time, the metal materials engineering students lived in the Emerald Lake Campus of Hefei University of Technology, and after his sophomore year, Liu Duanyang moved out of the dormitory and rented his own house outside.
After that, the students rarely heard about Liu Duanyang until they knew that he had dropped out of school. The graduates said they knew that Liu Duanyang had poor academic performance at the time and "often hung up on subjects", but could not determine whether he voluntarily dropped out of school or was persuaded by the school.
At that time, the students of the University of Co., Ltd. often took the bus to visit the nearby university on the weekend, and the campus of the University of Science and Technology of China, which is about 10 kilometers away from the Emerald Lake Campus of the University of Technology and about 30 minutes by car, is also one of the destinations.
Liu Duanyang did not respond to intellectuals' inquiries on the matter. The relevant personnel of the Alumni Office of Hefei University of Technology said that they could not provide relevant information.
Where did Liu Duanyang go after dropping out of school? None of his classmates at the University of Technology were clear.
According to information provided by people familiar with the matter, Liu Duanyang was once a student at Northeastern University. On Northeastern University's official website, a student named Liu Duanyang enrolled at Northeastern University in 2009 as a student in the school's School of Information Science and Engineering, and was one of 14 teams that won the first prize in the 2012 American College Mathematical Modeling Competition (MCM/ICM).
The Intellectuals wrote to northeastern University's President's Office, Admissions Office, Archives Office, and Alumni Association to disclose information on whether Liu Duanyang was a student of the university, but had not received a reply as of press time.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="112" > Master of Tsinghua University and Dr. Stanford? All are false information</h1>
Documents such as the "2018 Annual Suzhou Industrial Park Innovation and Development Conference and Jinji Lake Talent Commendation Conference HonorAble Album" show that Liu Duanyang has a master's degree from Tsinghua University, studied and worked abroad, and returned to China in 2015.
According to the Lvliang Daily in August 2020, Liu Duanyang studied at Tsinghua University and Stanford University in the United States, interned at Kingsoft Headquarters, and worked as an engineer in the X-Lab Hardware Lab of Google Headquarters in the United States [2].
According to the "Intellectuals", Liu Duanyang is not a master's degree from Tsinghua University, and only did 2 to 3 months of internship work in the K EG laboratory of Tsinghua University in 2013.
Christopher Manning, a professor at Stanford University, also replied to the Intellectuals email that he did not have a phD student named Duanyang Liu or Charles Liu (Liu Duanyang's commonly used English name). The Stanford University Registry Office did not respond to intellectuals' email inquiries.
Manning told The Intellectuals that a few years ago Chinese investors asked him if there was a man named Duanyang Liu in his lab, and he had replied "no."
Intellectuals contacted Zeng Haoshen, managing partner of the early-stage venture capital firm Chenhui Venture Capital. Zeng Haoshen said that he paid attention to Mobi Hi Ke in 2017 and contacted Liu Duanyang, but after a contact, he became suspicious, so he asked Professor Christopher Manning for verification at that time.
"At that time, Moby Hi-Ke had a certain degree of popularity in the industry, and even appeared on CCTV's entrepreneurial programs, with good media endorsements," Zeng Haoshen said.
Mr. Zeng graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Out of concern for alumni, in a video communication in November 2017, he asked Liu Duanyang some questions about life on the Stanford campus, "but Liu Duanyang could not give feedback." ”
In addition, Zeng Haoshen found that when asked questions about the technical details of the project, Liu Duanyang's answer was also "difficult to sink". Although there was only an hour of dialogue, he gradually became suspicious of the authenticity of Liu Duanyang's background. After the meeting, he searched the alumni system and did not find information about Liu Duanyang. After asking Professor Manning for confirmation, Zeng Haoshen said that he had never contacted Liu Duanyang again and told the team members not to contact the founder again.
An employee of Chenhui Ventures recalled that Liu Duanyang's response to the academic question at that time was that Professor Manning hated him because he dropped out of Stanford.
On September 15, The Intellectual contacted Liu Duanyang to verify his academic qualifications, but he did not respond positively, saying only that his company would issue a statement in response later. "Intellectuals" contacted Liu Duanyang again before the press release, but the phone could not be called, and the text message was not replied.
In public information on the Internet, even Liu Duanyang's date of birth has different versions.
Lvliang Daily reported that Liu Duanyang was born in 1986 to a peasant family in Guyuan, Ningxia. However, according to the "2018 Annual Suzhou Industrial Park Innovation and Development Conference and Jinji Lake Talent Commendation Conference Glory Book", Liu Duanyang was born in May 1984. In the registration information of Liu Duanyang on the Jiangzhiyuan alumni information platform of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, liu registered himself as a "Taurus", which seems to be in line with the statement that he was born in May. The platform has now deleted the relevant information of Liu Duanyang.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="113" > rapidly expanding "data factory."</h1>
In the past few years of rapid development of artificial intelligence applications, Liu Duanyang's main data labeling business has also risen.
According to the information of Tianyancha, Shenzhen Mobi Hike Raspberry Pi Intelligent Robot Co., Ltd. was established on November 10, 2016, with a registered capital of 6.66694 million yuan, Liu Duanyang is the legal representative and shareholder, with a direct shareholding ratio of nearly 50%, and indirectly holds more than 9% through another company.
In December 2016, Liu Duanyang established Dalian Mobi Hi Ke Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., in August 2017, panjin Mobi Hi Ke Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., and in 2019, he also established a company in Suzhou and Luoyang.
According to a report by The Economist on January 4, 2020, Liu Duanyang's company employs 300,000 data annotators in some poor provinces in China to label the data of human faces, medical images and urban scenery for some large AI companies, which is a digital version of the "assembly line factory".
With this type of business, he has established partnerships with local governments and large corporations. Among them, its Shenzhen company has cooperated with Huawei, iFLYTEK and other companies, and has signed cooperation with Dalian High-tech Zone in Liaoning, Qingdao West Coast New Area in Shandong, Lvliang Economic Development Zone in Shanxi, Yunyang County in Chongqing, and Yannan High-tech Zone in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, and has landed a number of data bases.
Surprisingly, in the process of contacting many investors, Liu Duanyang's fake academic qualifications have not been exposed.
"Investors occasionally encounter LIXOs, and we need to be vigilant, and we need to be independent judgment and fully verified." Zeng Haoshen said.
Resources:
1.https://neunews.neu.edu.cn/2012/0330/c193a14282/pagem.htm
2. https://www.kczg.org.cn/zt530activity/newsDetail?id=2877955