With wilderness in your heart, head toward the future

With wilderness in your heart, head toward the future

XJTLU Executive President’s Commencement Speech 2024

Dear Master's and Doctoral Graduates of the Class of 2026, respected parents, distinguished faculty, and honoured guests:

As April sunlight pours across the land, all things grow with vibrant abundance. In this season full of hope, we have gathered here together to witness this defining moment in your lives. Today is not an ending, but a beginning; not a farewell, but a promise. From this moment forward, you step into a wider world as graduates, embarking on the next chapter that belongs uniquely to you. As I look at your faces, brimming with expectation and the energy of youth, I find myself with many things I wish to share from the heart.

First, from the "track" to the "wilderness": redefining the path of your life

Your journey of growth has perhaps always resembled a train running on a fixed track – from kindergarten through university, each step carefully designed, every destination clearly marked. Yet today, as you stand at the threshold of graduation, the end of that track is no longer the next station. It opens instead onto a vast and boundless wilderness. In that wilderness, there are no clearly marked directions, no ready-made answers, and no one to tell you exactly how to proceed.

But it is precisely within that wilderness that you will discover the path that is truly and wholly your own. The education you have received here at XJTLU was never designed to make you passengers on a track. It was designed to awaken in you the deeper questions – not "Who should I become?" but "Who am I?" – and to equip you to be the trailblazers of your own wilderness. Here, you have learned to question, to choose, and most importantly, to find your own direction amid uncertainty. That capacity is the most precious gift you carry with you into the future.

Second, in the age of artificial intelligence: fully realising the unique value of the human being

The year of your graduation is a year of extraordinary turbulence in the world, and a year of unprecedented technological transformation. The breathtaking advancement of artificial intelligence has compelled us to rethink the very meaning of human value. When AI can generate answers at speed, and algorithms can simulate logic, where does human uniqueness truly lie? Let me be clear: technology can provide tools, but it cannot replace human emotion, creativity, or moral responsibility.

The world that awaits you needs you to be "question askers", not merely "answer receivers." To do this, you must draw upon the "HeXie Mindset" cultivated at XJTLU to tune out the noise of the world and hold true to your own inner melody. You must wield the critical thinking and innovative spirit you have developed here to pose the questions that technology alone cannot answer and to make judgements that require human depth and social conscience. You must harness the human-AI collaboration capacity and "Syntegrative Wisdom" you have nurtured, leveraging the immense computational power of artificial intelligence while safeguarding the distinctly human capacities for contextual understanding, emotional resonance, and creative imagination. You must learn to find that higher-order collaboration: between the arts and the sciences, between past and present, between the West and the East, between knowing and doing, between human and machine, sustaining your inner composure amid change and finding direction within complexity.

Third, remembering the mission of education: from "becoming talented" to "becoming a well-rounded person"

The meaning of education is not merely to equip you with knowledge and skills. Its deeper purpose is to help you become an well-rounded person. It means not only possessing independent capability, but possessing an independent mindset. It calls upon you to understand the relationship between freedom and responsibility, to appreciate the weight of your choices, to find your place in a pluralistic world, and to own the consequences of the paths you choose.

Whatever road lies ahead – whether you continue your studies, enter industry, start a venture, or find yourself temporarily at a crossroads – I hope you will allow the qualities of mind that XJTLU has cultivated in you to be your compass: a grand vision paired with grounded, practical action; an open heart paired with uncompromising principles; the capacity for independent thought paired with the generosity of collaboration and shared success.

Fourth, walking forward together with XJTLU: seeking answers to the world's greatest challenges

XJTLU, just like you, is continually growing. We are working hard to cultivate a forest within the wilderness — to provide solutions for the future of education and for the development of society. Let me share the four directions in which XJTLU is now striving:

1. Redefining education: Through the "XJTLU Learning Mall" and the "X-Eco Mall," we are breaking down the boundaries of education and transforming learning into an experience that can occur anywhere. You may already have noticed: our new Life Sciences Building has just opened, and the new North Campus is in active planning. These are not merely buildings, but are a living, growing educational ecosystem. University, industry, and society will converge as one; learning will happen in laboratories, in enterprises, wherever a question is Our boundaries are opening to the world.

2. Confronting humanity's greatest challenges through research: From post-quantum computing to life sciences, from frontier artificial intelligence to intelligent manufacturing ecosystems, from materials, chips and the Internet of Things to the future conditions of human civilisation, from finance and business administration to digital creativity, we have chosen to conduct research in precisely those domains where humanity faces its most pressing challenges. Through a series of Themed Centres of Excellence, we seek to provide answers for humanity’s future.

3. Reshaping the relationship between education and technology: Through our "Education + AI" strategy, we are not simply introducing a new technology, but are reconstructing the very paradigm of education. The "XJTLU Learning Mall" dissolves boundaries and enables the free flow of quality resources; the "X-Eco Mall" connects industry with education, forming an ecosystem of co-created value. Our independently developed AI platform, XIPU AI, integrates more than 20 of the world's leading large language models, accompanying students and staff in both life and work. What we seek is not the superficial adoption of technological tools, but the fundamental reinvention of how we teach and learn.

4. Exploring a societal ecosystem for the future: Building upon the progressive maturation of the XJTLU 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 models, we have already launched a new experiment – a "Future-oriented Lifelong Learning and Innovative Social Ecosystem", aspiring to offer entirely new solutions for the sustainable development of society. This is not ambition for our own sake but rather a grand mission for humanity. For true education must ultimately answer the deepest questions of what it means to be human.

All of these endeavours are not only for the future of XJTLU, they are for your future. The essence of education is to awaken the power of independent thinking, and guide every individual toward their own unique answers. Let us walk this road together, and make the world a better place.

Fifth, together, let us head toward the future with wilderness in our hearts

Many years from now, when you look back upon this day, I hope you will be able to say to yourselves: "Thank you." Thank you for choosing courage when you were at the age most suited for adventure. Thank you for preserving your original heart in a world of overwhelming complexity. Thank you for using these years to transform from someone whose life was "arranged" into someone who takes responsibility for themselves.

Ultimately, life resembles a wilderness and not a track. May you take values as your guiding thread, your uniqueness as your compass, your thoughts as your tether that keeps you true, and your openness as your steady pace; and in the vast expanse of the world, find your own rhythm, and compose the life's symphony that belongs to you alone, one that cannot be replicated or replaced, whether by another human or technology.

The wilderness has no path, yet wherever your footsteps fall, traces remain. Every place you pass through becomes a road.

Congratulations once again to all Master's and Doctoral graduates of XJTLU's Class of 2026.

May your future be brilliant and boundless.