Prof. WU Fei: Synergy of teaching and research

[Editor’s Note: Yongping Teaching Award is the highest accolade for teaching at Zhejiang University. Set up by Mr. DUAN Yongping ('82, Wireless Electronics Engineering) in 2011, the Award is composed of three categories: the Distinguished Teaching Award, the Teaching Excellence Award and the Teaching Excellence Nomination Award. Prof. WU Fei, from the College of Computer Science and Technology, is one of the two recipients of the Distinguished Teaching Award this year, an award with a cash prize of 1 million yuan. Read on to find more about his philosophy of teaching.]

WU Fei is currently Director of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence at Zhejiang University. During his 20-year career, he has participated in and witnessed many milestone and transformative strategic plans in the field of artificial intelligence in China. Now, he has unique insights into how to pass the baton to the next generation via teaching.

WU Fei has been adhering to the notion that we should “build solid foundations, promote inter-disciplinary studies and stress applications” in cultivating “AI + X” innovative talents.

He has developed an innovative talent cultivation model featured by science-education integration and industry-education integration through the establishment of a new-generation AI scientific and educational platform—Zhihai. 

A host of brilliant ideas are born on Zhihai. Students are able to predict the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on global warming by means of linear regression or the probability of migrant workers’ integration into urban communities through telephone records… “If students find that existing algorithms cannot solve complex problems in real life, they will explore new methods. This kind of passion about research is therefore ignited immediately,” said WU Fei. “A good teacher should feed teaching with scientific research and simultaneously promote scientific research with teaching so that teaching and scientific research can be organically developed.”

In April 2021, WU Fei, together with other computer science teachers from Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Fudan University, Nanjing University, the University of Science and Technology of China and Tongji University, launched the “AI + X” program with Huawei, Baidu, and SenseTime. This program aims to teach non-computer science students the basic knowledge system in artificial intelligence. In April 2022, 66 non-computer science students from the six universities received their certificate for the “AI + X” program.

Textbook writing is another major focus in WU Fei’s work. He believes that textbooks should reflect the thoughts, ideas and contents of educators. In the autumn of 2019, he published his textbook – Introduction to Artificial Intelligence: Models and Algorithms. This textbook is widely used in undergraduate and graduate teaching in China. Within a brief three years, it has been reprinted in its third edition.

In fact, WU Fei’s books have received a wider readership. In 2019, WU Fei completed a textbook about information technology for high school students. This textbook has been used in more than 10 provinces and municipalities in China. Meanwhile, he also produced a digital popular science book entitled Introduction to Artificial Intelligence for primary and secondary school students. This audiobook has been played more than 100,000 times in Ximalaya, a popular podcast platform in China. The print version of this book will be published in October this year.

All that WU Fei has done stems from his longing to share cutting-edge science and technology with the general public. “Scientific research keeps knowledge at the forefront, and the popularization of science enables more people to gain access to the knowledge accumulated in human history.