Duke Kunshan University and the Ricoh China Research Institute have teamed up to establish an off-campus training base in Kunshan that will expose students to industry expertise and help develop the highly skilled workforce required for key sectors in the city.
“We are leveraging Kunshan’s local industry-academia-research platforms and networks to establish a high-quality center for student internships and practical training,” said Xin Li, the associate vice chancellor for graduate studies and research at Duke Kunshan.
“This concerted effort will cultivate the talent to deliver breakthroughs in intelligent manufacturing and digital services.”
Plans for the Ricoh China Research Institute-Duke Kunshan University off-campus internship and practice base were unveiled in Kunshan in January by Li, who is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Bin Dong, vice dean of the institute.
The Yangtze River Delta branch of the research institute was Ricoh Group’s first intelligent manufacturing and digital services innovation center in China when it was founded in the Kunshan New and Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone in 2019.
The Kushan development zone became the first national high-tech industrial development zone to be located in a county-level city in 2010, and its economic importance nationally and regionally has continued to grow ever since.
Duke Kunshan was founded in 2013 as a joint-venture partnership between Duke University, Wuhan University and the city of Kunshan and currently has more than 1,700 students from nearly 70 countries.
Its interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate programs prepare students for professional, intellectual and societal leadership roles across the world, while its faculty lead efforts to find solutions to global challenges.
Kaizhu Huang, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke Kunshan and director of its Data Science Research Center, said Ricoh will provide opportunities for DKU students to undertake internships at the company.
“Undergraduate and graduate students specializing in data science, computer science and other related fields can gain insights into the latest technological resources and product information directly from Ricoh,” he added.
Established in Tokyo in 1936, Ricoh Group is a leading optical equipment manufacturer providing digital services, printing and imaging solutions to about 200 countries and regions. Ricoh’s global revenue was USD 18.9 billion in 2022 and last year was named among the world’s best companies by TIME magazine.
