Singapore university ready to cultivate business talent

China Fortune Land Development Co Ltd just signed a memorandum of understanding with the National University of Singapore to cultivate talent in business analytics to meet the growing challenge of constructing smart cities.

CFLD will join hands with the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business Analytics Centre, a partnership between NUS Business School and NUS School of Computing.

The company will enroll more than five students from the National University of Singapore every year in the business analytics internship program from 2017 to 2019. It will also provide a scholarship and job opportunity for at least one Master of Science in Business Analytics student at the university, according to the signing ceremony held in Singapore on Friday.

The United Nations released the World Urbanization Prospects report in 2014, saying that the world's urban population grew from 746 million in 1950 to 3.9 billion in 2014, which means 54 percent of the whole population lived in cities that year. The number is expected to increase to 66 percent by 2050.

"With the massive amount of data being generated by people and organizations today, businesses will reap immense benefits by leveraging on tools and technologies to interpret this invaluable repository of information", said Mohan Kankanhalli of the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore.

Cooperation in big data, business analytics and smart cities technology will help solve the urban challenges tackled by the smart cities industry, Kankanhalli said.

A Forbes Asia's Fab 50 Company, China Fortune Land Development Co Ltd is a real estate operator that advocates building cities by developing industries, according to its official website. The company set up its international headquarters in Singapore in 2016 to target Asian, European, North American and African markets.

"We chose to set up our headquarters in Singapore due to its strong and stable business environment as a global hub for innovation, technology, education and financial services," said Jerry Zhao, the company's president.

A series of leadership seminars will be held as part of the cooperative agreement. The first seminar, on big data and intelligent analysis and international smart industries, will be held before April 15.

According to Bernard Yeung, Business School Dean of NUS, the partnership with CFLD will definitely elevate students' exposure, and prepare them for meaningful career aspirations even after graduation.