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On the evening of March 22, in front of 500 students, three Baidu AI Deep Learning Lecturers came to Tianjin University: Baidu staff Cui Lei, Hu Kuang, and Zhu Xin shared the latest developments in the areas of AI vision and driverless vehicles. At the same time the Baidu Apollo Autopilot Development Kit was launched.

To open the event, Jia Qijun, Director of the Publicity Department at Tianjin University welcomed the Baidu AI Deep Learning Lecture Program to Tianjin University. Jia Qijun spoke highly of Baidu's tremendous achievements in the fields of searching, AI, cloud computing, and big data. He hoped that the university-enterprise joint construction of an artificial intelligence discipline system will inevitably result in developments that will lead the whole industry-university-research institute integration and professional educational training in the future. In time, Tianjin University will deepen cooperation with the Baidu Company, promote the excellent university culture and integrate intelligent education into the overall strategy of educational modernization.

"Man knows the world through a process from seeing to understanding. As a pair of eyes in the Baidu brain, computer vision technology has been working hard to achieve an upgrade from seeing to understanding." At the event, Baidu’s Cui Lei and Hu Kuang delivered keynote speeches on the Baidu Visual Semantic Technology and Self-driving Technology and the Apollo Platform to the teachers and students. They used the vivid language to “distil" Baidu's cutting-edge technology to let the students understand how the Baidu R&D team realized the major upgrade of Baidu’s brain from seeing to understanding and how they overcame a series of challenges in autopilot technology, such as environmental awareness, high-precision mapping, high-precision positioning, line-controlled vehicles, high-performance computing hardware and so on.

Of special note was the launch of the Baidu Apollo Autopilot Development Kit! The kit provides a solution pathway from the remote control vehicle chassis to the hardware sensor. Its product form is a "pure electric unmanned wire control chassis + high expansion hardware structure platform + multi-sensor kit + high-performance industrial computer", which can meet the engineering needs of developers, universities, and POC teams in the real development process. Zhu Xin, a product designer of Baidu Apollo, shared the design concept of Apollo's autopilot kit with teachers and students, encouraging teachers and students to empower this new product – “I hope you can discover your own autopilot application by using it!”

After the launching ceremony, Baidu also opened up a "front page brain-storming session" with teachers and students who had a strong interest in unmanned driving, discussing the key technical points and difficulties of pilotless driving.

In the afternoon, Tianjin University and Baidu signed an in-depth cooperation agreement. The two sides, with an eye to the future, will focus on the country's major needs and key technical fields, integrate innovation, create a platform for cooperation between industry and academia, and explore a new training model for new, talented engineering students so as to provide the "Tianjin University experience" for the national construction of new engineering. In the future, the two sides will use methods like the new engineering Baidu experimental class, a Tianjin University-Baidu joint laboratory, an AI training base, and new engineering project research and development innovation camps to develop future technologies for actual needs, jointly build a research and development platform, and explore new engineering personnel cultivation systems. Building a collaborative innovation community, cultivating innovative talent, and fostering an innovative and integrated environment will also provide a new paradigm for the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei.