On the afternoon of September 18, 2018, Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, UK, visited Tianjin University with a delegation, attending the Discussion on China-UK Intelligent Medical Education and Industry, and paid a visit to Medical College of Tianjin University. Zhong Denghua, President of Tianjin University, met the delegation.

President Zhong Denghua briefly introduced Tianjin University’s history and development, talent training and preeminent disciplines, especially the efforts and progress of Emerging Engineering Education, the combination of Medicine and Engineering, and Artificial Intelligence. He said, the two universities have a deep and long relationship. Shi Shaoxi, Former President of Tianjin University, obtained his Ph. D from Manchester University in 1949. In recent years, the two universities have closely cooperated bringing fruitful results. He hoped that by this visit, the two universities could strengthen exchanges and cooperation, especially in Intelligent Medicine.

Mayor Andy Burnham said that he was grateful to visit Tianjin University during the Davos Forum. Tianjin University has strengths in innovation and Enterprise-University-Institute collaboration. He hoped this meeting could push forward the development of intelligent medical education and industry in China and the UK, and establish platform of academic exchange and cooperation between Tianjin University and Manchester University.

After the meeting, the Andy Burnham team visited the Tianjin University Medical College and witnessed the scientific research achievements in brain science and neural engineering at Tianjin University. The delegation visited the first artificial neural robot “Shengong-1”, which has applications for rehabilitation after stroke and the High-Performance Brain-Computer Interaction Test Platform. During the visit, Andy Burnham and others interacted directly with the artificial neural robot and highly praised the intelligent medicine achievements of Tianjin University.

Andy Burnham received an interview after the visit. He said that Tianjin University is the first to set up the major of Intelligent Medical Engineering in China, taking the lead in Artificial Intelligence+medicine, which is a significant event in global Artificial Intelligence Education. The UK would continually strengthen exchange and cooperation with Tianjin University and boost mutual development.

On the afternoon of September 18, 2018, a Discussion on China-UK Intelligent Medical Education and Industry was held at Tianjin University, to push forward China and Britain’s Artificial Intelligence and health care development. Rhys Whalley, Executive Director of the Manchester-China Forum and Hu Wenping, Vice President of Tianjin University, attended the conference and gave speeches. Attendees also included James Turner from the MIDAS Manchester-Inward Investment Agency, Richard Cotton from the Manchester University and representatives of Tianjin University.

Hu Wenping said, nowadays, the combination of health care and new technology such as Artificial Intelligence, robots and big data is much closer. Intelligent Medicine has become the significant force in the health care service industry. Tianjin University founded the Medical College in April and set up China’s first Intelligent Medicine undergraduate program. Tianjin University would like to actively cooperate with Chinese and British companies in talent cultivation and scientific research and develop the Intelligent Medicine industry together in the future.

Rhys Whalley said that Tianjin University has a long history and rich culture. It recently set up China’s first program of Intelligent Medical Engineering, which has a bright future. Manchester pays great attention to health care. He hoped that in the future, Manchester could cooperate together with Tianjin University in education and health care, and advance care issues during the cities development period.

Richard Cotton told of the long history of Manchester University and described the highly sophisticated research results it had achieved in recent years and the scientific research it would focus on in the future. He said Manchester University was willing to establish a friendly partnership with Tianjin University and strengthen exchange to promote mutual development.

In the exchange, Zhao Xuming, Strategy Director of the Andon Health Company Limited, showed the products based on the Internet and developed independently by Andon Health Company, including tools monitoring blood pressure, blood sugar, blood oxygen, electrocardio, weight, sleep and sports. Toni Wang, International Business Director of Tellyes Scientific Company Limited,  showed the modern development of medical education and medical simulation education, and intelligent medical education technology; Cheng Longlong, Data Scientist of the China Electronics Corporation, introduced the National Health Care Big Data Pilot Project and the planning, development and operation of the “Internet+ Health” major project, and the Intelligent Shared System of the National Health Care Big Data Cloud Brain center; Ben Bridgewater, the Chief Executive of Health Innovation of Manchester, UK, illustrated the electronic changes in health care and the future of Artificial Intelligence development, proposing the development goal of health industry innovation and the enterprise vision of “Becoming the acknowledged international leader, accelerating innovation, and improving citizens health“; Dr Chris Bates, Representative of The Phoenix Partnership Ltd (TPP), introduced the enterprise vision of “Improving the health industry by clinical software to even up global health care services”, and demonstrated integrated health software; Ken Miller, Product Director and Co-founder of Pan Intelligence, presented the importance of artificial intelligence in business and introduced commercial intelligent software; James Blackwood, Chief Operating Officer at Simplifai Systems Limited, said the traffic control applications of artificial intelligence could ease traffic jams in cities, which meant Artificial Intelligence was critical to urban management; Yao Li, Founder of Qbots, proposed a goal: using the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence to meet the challenges of the energy industry, and looked into the future of intelligent energy systems, intelligent services and intelligent control.

Representatives of Huiying Medical Technology Co., Ltd, IFLYTEK (Tianjin) Co. Ltd, Beijing Natong Medical Technology Co., Ltd, Beijing Cool Growth Technology Co. Ltd, the Health Center of Sino-Fortune (Tianjin) Co. Ltd, the Medical Rehabilitation Center, the Health Care Big Data Center, and Value Chain, also attended the event.