Six College of Business students have returned home from Hangzhou, after a four-week summer internship programme entitled Global Dreamers. The programme organized by the Unleash Foundation, and supported and sponsored by Alibaba Group, the world’s leading e-commerce company, and Zhejiang University, was held from June to August, 2014. An office was set-up in Hangzhou to facilitate the programme execution and logistics.
Global Dreamers aimed to provide undergraduates with valuable opportunities to gain work experience in top-tier enterprises and to help them understand the development of China and the world’s e-commerce markets.
Participants attended numerous lectures, workshops, group sharing sessions, and interactive exercises with students from Zhejiang University. Departmental visits to Taobao City and AliExpress, and environmental protection projects such as the Five Water Treatment project supported by the local government helped deepen students’ understanding of the business operation aspects of China’s e-commerce market.
27 undergraduates out of 240 shortlisted candidates were selected after two rounds of interviews and tests conducted by Unleash Foundation and Alibaba Group in March and April of this year. The successful students were divided into two groups, and started their journeys separately between June and August. Upon completion of the programme, each participant submitted a report summarizing their learning experience and outcome. A closing ceremony was held on 26th July to celebrate students’ accomplishments.
CityU participants:
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Ching-ching Chan, Year 2 Department of Information Systems |
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Elton Lau Yan-ting, Year 3, Department of Information Systems |
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Regina Ho Yee-ting, Year 2, Department of Information Systems |
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Prajna Ho Cheuk-wing, Year 2, Department of Management Sciences |
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Joanne Lam Ka-yan, Year 3, Department of Information Systems |
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Adonis To Wing-tai, Year 3, Department of Information Systems |
Elton Lau, one of the six CB participants commented:
“It was an eye-opening experience. It inspired me to pursue my dream! Over the one-month internship period, I was deeply impressed by [Alibaba’s] relaxed working atmosphere, its culture of continuous learning and improvement, its passion and dreams, and its staff's hard work and enthusiasm. This experience inspired me to reinvent myself, to be more self-reliant and proactive. This programme not only widened my horizons but also gave me courage to achieve my goal.”
About Alibaba Group
The Alibaba Group, established in 1999 by Mr Jack Ma as a website called Alibaba.com, is a privately owned Hangzhou-based group of internet-based e-commerce businesses including business-to-business online web portals, online retail and payment services, shopping search engine, and data-centric cloud computing services. Following the success of the website, Taobao Marketplace, Tmall.com, and Alipay have also been established, and developed into the largest consumer-to-consumer online shopping mechanisms in mainland China.
For CityU NewsCentre report, please click here.