Overview of Onsite Research Bootcamp

During the winter and summer Chinese school holidays (around February, July, and August), GEC runs on-site programs, usually in Beijing or Shanghai, inviting our

faculty from across the globe to China and bringing everyone together on a beautiful campus where people can learn, talk, and bond face to face. Our onsite research bootcamp features a cluster of intensive courses focusing on interdisciplinary studies in science, engineering, social sciences, and the humanities. Courses will feature the latest trends in research methods, sometimes combining data analysis or artificial intelligence with a specific research area, should it be astrophysics, healthcare, psychology, etc.

At present, onsite summer camp has served more than 5,000 students and more than 200 courses have been set up. The academic expert committee is composed of cooperative tutors from top universities in Britain and the United States. We have 18 overseas laboratories and more than 600 mentors from prestigious British and American universities.

Why Participate?

As the most ambitious initiative that we have designed with the mission of fostering a new generation of top researchers and engineers, AIHUB serves as an intensive project-based learning program that selects and helps incredibly gifted Chinese high school students and college students who want to explore academic interests beyond school curriculums and extend their potentials by mastering essential research skills.

Our AI HUB features a cluster of intensive courses focusing on interdisciplinary studies in science, engineering, social sciences, and humanities. These programs are taught on-site for a period of 2-3 weeks. The goal of this program is to create a space where students can receive mentorship from our faculty, where professors can also enlighten students’ academic interests and career choices.

2021 AIHUB

During the 2019 AIHUB, 7 professors from the top universities in the US and more than 100 students all over the world participated in this exciting program in Beijing. Numerous positive feedbacks regarding this program were collected from our past students and all professors who flew to China to work with us that summer. Unfortunately, facing the sudden pandemic, we have to halt all on-site programs, including AIHUB in 2020. However, we didn't stop making progress. Throughout the year 2020, we reached out to professors, institutions, and university labs across the globe to prepare for the 2021 AIHUB.

Reaching 2021, the pandemic was still significantly affecting the world. The yet lifted international travel bans made us once again face the challenge that some of the teachers who teach in the U.S and U.K still wouldn't be able to join us onsite for the 2021 AIHUB. After serious considerations and long discussions within the GEC team, we decided that we were going to try a new delivery format- a hybrid, a mix of online and onsite. Being that the majority of AIHUB programs are delivered onsite, we understood that having a new delivery format could be a risk and we have the responsibility to ensure that the students will be able to learn, socialize, and enjoy the program as much as they would have been if the entire program was delivered onsite. It took our teaching and research team almost six months to plan, develop, and design the programs to ensure their smooth running. And we are very happy to announce that our efforts do pay off!

In the Summer of 2021, about 10 leading U.S and UK Professors (online), tens of teaching assistants, and hundreds of students gathered together at AI HUB in the summer of 2021v in Shanghai. Though it's our first time offering AIHUB using the hybrid format, we are very proud of how much students and teachers both enjoy the programs and we believe that such an innovative and effective delivery format would be becoming very popular in the future.

2021 AIHUB Programs are listed below: