Grand Challenge Scholars Program (GCSP)

National Chiao Tung University

   Endorsed by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in the US, the Grand Challenge Scholars Program (GCSP) will be initiated and launched by the College of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Our objectives in this program are to educate our students to become future leaders by providing pragmatic solutions for basic human needs, bridging technologies to sustainable society, and reinventing human and machine interactions.

   We intend to implement the GCSP in three different stages:

• Preliminary Courses: A series of “Freshman Leadership Cultivation and Discovery” courses are implemented in our ECE College. The grand challenges identified by NAE will be launched in this series of courses, including energy and environment, health, security and society, and joy of life. Students will be encouraged to conduct technology survey, discussion, and debate, to identify grand challenges in one of the challenging domains.
• GCSP Core Course: A three credit course will be offered in ECE College as the GCSP core courses. Several focused topics or projects will be conveyed in this course to provide deeper insights and practical solutions for students. For example, one of our courses, Creative Software Project, is a course aiming at developing software projects usable in real-world. This course focuses on “learning by doing”, ”team work”, and “research/startup-oriented”. It covers fundamental and advanced development tools (git, ROS, OpenCV) in C++ or Python through “Duckietown”, an open course “MIT 2.166 Autonomous Vehicles.” Students are encouraged to form their own teams and propose software projects. Students will have great chances to engage in application-oriented projects in autonomous vehicles and robots. How engineering problems and solutions affects our human lives will be investigated in this course. The Steering Committee at NCTU has the rights to determine which feasible courses belong to the category of GCSP Core Courses.
• Advanced Courses and Trainings:
  1. English Courses: To enhance the capability of global participation for the students, two English course will be specially designed and offered to our GCSP students including “Debate and Speech” and “Global Leadership”. These two courses aim at providing extensive in-class discussions and presentations. Students will be able to strengthen their English presentation and debating skills, as well as to cultivate their potential leadership.
  2. Innovative Creative Technology (ICT) Co-Working Space: Students are encouraged to take courses/micro-courses in the ICT co-working space, which is initiated by NCTU to promote students’ multi-discipline capabilities. There are fourteen different categories of ICT courses, including IoT, robotics, drone, embedded system, virtual reality and augmented reality, bio-electronics, sensor components, wireless communications, and etc.. For example, one of the courses listed in the IoT category of ICT Co-Working Space is the “Introduction to IoT and Cloud Service: Internet Device”. This micro-course introduces the history, definitions, structure and application of IoT. Students taking this couse will have the chance to conduct implementation project on monitoring services for air quality.
  3. Junior/Senior Project: GCSP students at NCTU will be provided with the opportunities to conduct junior/senior project with faculty who are involved in problem-solving for GCSP. The length of project may go from one semester to two semesters depending on the requirement of participated faculty. The research fields of projects may cover various domains including electrical engineering, computer engineering, bio-engineering, and generic engineering problems.
  4. Entrepreneur Internship and Volunteer Services: Students will be offered with various opportunities to participate international and local entrepreneur internships and volunteer services. For example, students are encouraged to apply for the following three programs offered by our NCTU GCSP, including Student Exchange Program, Summer Research Internship Program (SRIP), International Entrepreneurship Program (IEP), and International and Local Volunteer Services.
     1. Student Exchange Program: The College of ECE at NCTU offers student exchange program with several top-notch schools all around the world, such as University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and K.U. Leuven. Selected students in our NCTU GCSP will have higher priority to get accepted and granted with scholarship while applying for the exchange program.
     2. Summer Research Internship Program (SRIP): The College of ECE currently is actively signing Summer Research Internship Program with many prestigious universities, including UCLA, USC, and UC Davis. Selected students from GCSP will have the opportunities going abroad to be summer interns in these elite schools. They will have two months to conduct research projects in selected faculty’s laboratories. We expect to bring out more high-quality research achievements of bilateral international cooperation and cultivate promising leaders through this program.
     3. International Entrepreneurship Program (IEP): Nowadays, innovative entrepreneurship has been a new trend for students all over the world. The College of ECE has signed the international program of innovative entrepreneurship with Princeton University. We will take this contract as a model and expand to other top schools, such as Stanford university, Singapore University of Technology and Design, and University of Hong Kong. Selected GCSP students will spend summer time in one of these universities to attend bi-directional entrepreneurship workshop, visit and engage with international companies, and conduct business-oriented projects and discussions.
     4. International and Local Volunteer Services: In order to engaging NCTU GCSP students with human care, numerous activities will be hosted in NCTU to provide international and local volunteer services. Students participate in this service will be able to provide their help physically and mentally to others who need assistance. For example, students spent their summer time building a wooden structured library for local children in the mountain county of Taiwan, Tai-Dong, and teaching and helping these children to learn computer skills just like modern children.
  5. GCSP Workshops and Seminars: The GCSP at NCTU will inspire students by hosting various workshops and seminars with speakers on global leadership, innovation, and human care. Students will have the chance to meet top industrial leaders, educators, and philosophers to gain insight into their successful stories.

   Students are encouraged to apply the GCSP at NCTU in their freshman year. The basic requirement for each student to acquire GCSP certification at NCTU is to achieve 9 credit hours of GCSP curriculum courses and 20 hours of volunteer services, training, and/or entrepreneur internship. With progressive participation of GCSP at NCTU, students should be able to obtain the GCSP certification in their junior or senior year. The GCSP-certified students will be encouraged and sponsored by NCTU to attend the annual Global Grand Challenges Summit (GGCS) hosted by NAE GCSP in the US. We expect our GCSP-certified students at NCTU to possess independent thinking, innovation, globalization, entrepreneurship, especially humanistic solicitude.