BGA | BUSINESS IMPACT
could plan, promote and execute the initiative. I was proud of our Sustainable Future Talents members for being confident enough to advocate for their ideas, and to correct me when I was wrong. They learned from me how to manage the project while I learned from them more about our target audience’s needs and preferences. The initiative resulted in the creation of the Sustainable Future Talents student association. Could you explain what this is, and what your hopes are for it in terms of next steps? When I first decided to develop the FWFW initiative, I knew I wanted to get the students leading with faculty mentoring. A few months earlier, a determined young man, TANG Yi, had marched into my office to ask for support and funding of a local XJTLU Hult Prize competition. I had never met this young man, but over the course of a month, I became very impressed with his organisational skills and vision as he and other student leaders succeeded in hosting the Hult Prize competition at our university. For the FWFW initiative, I contacted him and asked if he would meet me to discuss it. He brought several others to that meeting, and the rest is history. It was probably about a month into the initiative when they announced to me that they had agreed on a name for the group – Sustainable Future Talents – and that they were actively recruiting new members. We ended the 15 weeks with 27 student members and a new leader, LI Yanfei. In December 2021, we welcomed our second cohort of Sustainable Future Talents recruits. They have had to rethink their initial plans for this semester. As you probably know, many cities in China, including Suzhou, are experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases [at the time of this interview in March/April 2022]. Due to this, our university has been online only so far this semester. At present, we are looking at providing online carbon literacy training across the university during Earth Week. Many of us attended online training [on this topic] from Petra Molthan-Hill of Nottingham Trent University through the PRME organisation in November, and received our Carbon Literacy certification ‘When I first decided to develop the “15 Ways in 15 Weeks” initiative, I knew I wanted to get the students leading with faculty mentoring’
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