HSS explores industry–education collaboration with Marketingforce

On 27 July, Professor  Xiaoling Zhang (third from right), Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, led a delegation on a visit to Marketingforce, a leading Chinese developer of AI application platforms.

At Marketingforce’s Digital Intelligence Industry Base, located in Shanghai’s Big Data Industrial Base, the delegation learned about the company’s development and achievements. Marketingforce has received a number of honours, including the Second Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award and the First Prize of the Shanghai Science and Technology Progress Award, and has been recognised as a National High-Tech Enterprise.

According to Feng Guo, Director of Marketingforce’s Education Department, the company has served more than 200,000 enterprises across a wide range of sectors, including retail, automotive, culture and tourism, finance, healthcare and foreign trade.

“Based on the needs and characteristics of the domestic market, we develop homegrown large-scale software and AI applications to help companies formulate more precise and effective marketing strategies and gain a greater market share,” Guo said.

“Besides governments and businesses, higher education institutions are also at the forefront of the development and application of AI technologies,” said Jinnan Li, Jiangsu Regional Director of Marketingforce’s Higher Education Division.

Marketingforce’s collaboration with universities dates back to 2011, when it jointly established the Integrated Internet Marketing Research Institute with Fudan University, focusing on data analysis and mining. In 2013, the company was approved to establish Shanghai’s first Academician and Expert Workstation in the field of information technology, further supporting talent development and industry–academia–research collaboration.

“We hope XJTLU students will develop not only strong research capabilities, but also excellent practical skills,” Professor Zhang said. She added that a key purpose of the visit was to explore how AI technologies could be incorporated into everyday teaching and create new pathways for students’ career development.

Dr Gejun Huang, Assistant Professor in HSS’s Department of Media and Communication, who joined the visit, highlighted Marketingforce’s technological strengths, practical experience and industry resources.

He suggested that the two sides could explore collaboration in areas such as developing practical training bases, student internships and employment, industry-oriented research projects, and joint applications for industry research initiatives.

“Such collaboration would contribute to talent development while also helping meet the needs of the digital industry,” Dr Huang said.

Dr Jing Zhu, Assistant Professor in HSS’s Department of China Studies, expressed strong interest in the joint development of AI-related courses. She suggested that the University and industry partners could divide responsibilities according to their respective strengths and design curricula based on academic disciplines and industry needs, thereby developing teaching resources that more closely connect education with industry practices.

Building on the visit, HSS will explore further collaboration with Marketingforce to develop a model for talent cultivation that integrates education, scientific research, technological innovation, enterprise services and student entrepreneurship. The initiative aims to establish an approach that could potentially be replicated and adapted by other academic programmes and institutions.