On April 29th, at 2pm, over 50 international students gathered at the 3rd floor of the conference center of Jiangsu University to engage in intensive discussions with YTO company executives. It was a very interactive meeting attended by very high profile dignitaries from YTO group and Jiangsu University. In attendance,  we had Cai Jibo, Deputy party secretary and vice chairman of YTO Group, Kou Haifeng, General Manager of YTO Group sales center, Chen Ning, General manager assistant of China-Africa Machinery corporation, Shen Lu, Manager of Marketing &Administration department in China-Africa Machinery and Gao Jing, Dean of OEC.

The meeting kicked off with a welcome address and introduction of the importance of agriculture mechanization by the Dean of OEC, Prof .Gao Jing who was the host for the event. She then invited Mr. Cai for his speech.

Mr. Cai reiterated the will of YTO group to establish a win-win collaboration between the company and Jiangsu University. Mr. Cai, is an alumni of Jiangsu university and he believes that internationalization of the university is excellent. He then said, “A strong partnership with international student is welcome”.

Following was Shen Lu, Manager of Marketing & Administration department in China-Africa Machinery speech. She gave a very detailed presentation about the YTO group. YTO is the first company to produce tractors in china and is China’s Leading Agriculture machinery. Their proven record in all sectors of the market which include manufacturing, research and development, innovation and sales has been of great importance both in China and in other foreign markets. 

After this insightful presentation, Ingrid Epezagne, SAM president gave a presentation introducing the Association’s activities and proposed collaboration between international students and the company. She believes that with the students’ skills and talents, they can help bridge the gap between academia and industry and act as representatives of the company in their respective countries. One of the main aims of the belt and road initiative is to encourage agriculture mechanization and enhancing food security across the globe. Jiangsu University has been successfully contributing to this vision through collaboration and partnerships with both local governments, companies, organizations and academic institutions. 

The international students in JSU have also been working together with the University in coming up with programs that engage students in agriculture mechanization not only in China but in their countries as well. To support that, we had a presentation from Oluwatobi Pelumi Adeleke about the 2018 summer camp. He shared his experience and all the benefit the program had to offer. After that he invited YTO Company in collaborating with international students.

Finally there was an interactive session during which representatives of countries like Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Guinea, Ghana, Cameroun, elaborated on the need for agriculture mechanization in their country and the contribution of YTO group towards the achievement of this goal. The company executive answered all the questions and invited all participants to contact them with their business strategy plan.

We believe that this opportunity helped many students to know how they can contribute to the agriculture mechanization of their countries and also to have a connection to one of the leading companies in this industry. We hope that in future more students will join such events as we continue to build the vision of eradicating hunger in our countries.