On 6th May 2017, NCSH had the privilege to invite Miss Li Bowen, the Head of Big Data Solution of Baidu, to speak to the 26th and 27th batch of NCSH. As the forerunner of internet technologies in China as well as a search engine giant, virtually everyone who has set foot in China would have used at least one of the services offered by Baidu. On the other hand, an enormous amount of press as well as investor attention have been gravitating towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data. In this wonderful afternoon, Miss Li Bowen shared with us the development of the Chinese internet industry as well as the present and future of AI and big data. China’s internet history has come a long way, as Miss Li shared, since version 1.0 of the Internet that was led by internet gateways such as Sina, Sohu, etc. Back in the mid-90s, the lack of a widely-adopted search engine and highly scattered online information contributed to the rise of these internet gateways as a one stop solution for online information. Subsequently, version 2.0 of the Internet arose, flourishing on the wide adoption of smart phones in China. The high penetration rate of smart mobile platforms and its amalgamation with internet-friendly software not only freed Chinese internet users from having access only through their desktops, but also gave opportunities for internet companies to expand their services deeper into people’s everyday lives. This is the period where we see the internet being a truly inseparable part of our lives. This is also the period where we see Chinese internet companies growing from venturous startups to giants in their respective fields, such as Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. All internet companies benefit from traffic. Most, if not all, of the internet traffic would in one way or another go through these three internet giants and their subsidiaries - Alibaba dominated the e-commerce market in China with its payment platform with Alipay, moving towards the big goal of internet finance and establishing a ubiquitous credit system through its new Ant Finance venture. Tencent held the strongest share in the internet communication and entertainment market through its super-app WeChat and gaming sectors. Baidu still remains as the single biggest player in the online search engine market. From cashless economy to O2O platforms, the pervasiveness of the internet is down to virtually every aspect of our lives. One may wonder, where else and how much further will version 3.0 of internet take us? And the answer is: Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. As a rare female computing engineer, Miss Li realised where her true interests were and challenged herself further by spearheading the AI and Big Data development in China: the Baidu Brain. The Baidu Brain is a large neural network where most types of Baidu’s data, such as location, search, image and video are stored. While most of the other large internet companies are preoccupied by the expansion of their business scope by starting new ventures and investing/acquiring new startups, Baidu stays highly focused on its core business: internet technologies. The development of the Baidu Brain, which Miss Li’s team is working on, would allow the possibilities of smart marketing, with one of the most ambitious goals in the search engine industry: natural language processing. The development of the Baidu Brain leverages heavily on the development of AI and Big Data. Miss Li shed light on this hugely popular but controversial topic in both the venture capital and technological worlds. AI has been in existence for decades, with the sole objective of making machines ‘think’ like humans by incorporating techniques such as machine learning and neural network to simulate the functions of human brains. With the massive inputs from Big Data, AI would be able to develop patterns in the seemingly meaningless ocean of data and eventually help make logical predictions and optimised business strategies that were previously impossible to make by computers. Recent developments of chat bots, Alpha Go and driverless cars are outstanding examples of what can be achieved with AI and Big Data. However, as powerful and glorified as it can be when AI and Big Data go hand in hand, one must put a leash on this formidable beast before it becomes unstoppable. There are many controversies that are inherent to AI and Big Data. One would be privacy issues with Big Data, as personal information will no longer be private if not processed and regulated properly. On top of that, AI would likely replace most repetitive jobs once it reaches maturity, and the potential rise of unemployment in certain sectors such as customer services, accounting, etc. must not be overlooked. Lastly, AI and Big Data are ultimately tools developed to improve the efficiency of human activities, but not to have a life on its own (allowed to make independent decisions). Factors that are inherent to humans such as ethics and emotions are not able to be coded into the algorithms of AI, which are ultimately what separate machines from us. As a result, despite of the overwhelming attention that AI and Big Data are receiving in terms of their capabilities, human intervention in their applications and executions must still be of paramount importance.
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As the Chinese proverb goes, the favour of a drop of water should be reciprocated with the gratitude of a fountain of water (滴水之情,以泉相报). Such is the motto of Jane Sun, the CEO of Ctrip, China’s most successful online travel platform with a multi-billion valuation. True to her values, Jane has donated generously to scholarships to enable NUS students to embark on their NOC journeys to Beijing and Shanghai. On the 21st of April, SHEN had the rare opportunity to visit Ctrip’s headquarters and speak to with Jane to understand more about her and the company. Jane Sun came from a humble background from a lower tier Chinese city, but was given the rare opportunity during her university days to further her studies in the US. During her time there, she was blessed to have been supported by a prominent professor and his wife who taught her many invaluable life lessons and treated her as part of their family. As success followed, she said that the professor always told her that the best form of reciprocity for his kindness was to pass it on to other students in need. Today, Jane has donated multiple scholarships to help students not only in local universities, but also other universities in Hong Kong and Singapore such as NUS to help lighten their financial burden. During our interaction with Jane, she gave advice on her perspectives on struggles in life. As a poor student, she did not have it easy even with the support of her professor. She emphasised that 90% of the outcome of any struggle depends on how each individual approaches the problem, and seeing it as something positive and challenging can help shape a better outcome. As we step into the working world in future, this would be crucially important with more responsibilities coming our way. In Asian societies, many women strive for a balance between their career and family. Jane has done so even as a senior executive in the company by maintaining a high level of efficiency in her work, regular exercise, as well as a positive attitude toward her work. She commented: “Family is integral to women at a fundamentally biological level. I want to be able to set a role model for my two daughters and show them that it is possible to be a good mother while holding a full-time job.” “ An individual’s capability and ability to work in a team is more important than appearance” Jane said this when she spoke about her time as a female senior executive with a small stature, which she related to when she led a majority-female team on Ctrip’s journey to becoming listed in NASDAQ back in 2003. Today, Ctrip encourages female leadership and is led by a significant number of female senior executives, a step ahead as compared to other Chinese companies. As a multi-million enterprise, Jane explains the difficulty in running such a huge company while staying ahead of her competitors. Innovation has been one of the main focuses of Ctrip to maintain its competitive edge, with two key programs in the company known as the Young Tiger initiative as well as the Global Stage. Through these two programs, young employees who understand the business on the ground level and have direct interaction with customers have a channel to express their new ideas to the senior executives in the companies and execute their plans if deemed feasible. Jane quoted the example of a young director who proposed a business plan to explore the possibility of providing chartered bus services. Today, this Young Tiger initiative is a profitable channel for Ctrip with substantial success. After the interaction with Jane Sun, Ctrip brought us on a tour and gave us a glimpse of how Ctrip manages the millions of online transactions for flights, train tickets and accommodation in their daily operations. The numerous screens showing the transactions in real-time was astounding, and could be activated using voice control by the operators. Look, Singapore is 6th in place for travel destinations! At the end of the tour, we were introduced to the long and illustrious history of Ctrip from its founding in 1999 to its scale today.
It has been a great honour to be able to visit the headquarters of Ctrip and see in person the growing journey of China’s largest online travel booking platform which has made travelling in China extremely convenient even for us Singaporeans. Check out Ctrip’s website at http://english.ctrip.com/! |
SHEN
申城 (shen cheng) is an ancient name for Shanghai.
As a group of NUS and NOC students who are in Shanghai for a year-long internship programme, we have named our student organisation as SHEN (Shanghai House of Entrepreneurs). Archives
November 2017
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